Banana Suit, CPR and a ROAD TRIP!

So yesterday was my first holdover meeting. A holdover meeting is when you find out when and if you fly to Iraq. I forgot to mention that there are some people that have been waiting here for weeks for their flight plans. Depending on who you are, where you are going (to which base) and who the supervisors are, you may not fly to Iraq right after you complete the orientation. Most people spend anywhere from 1-2 weeks waiting for a flight. In the meantime, they keep you at a hotel, provide meals and that's it. There isn't much else to do. They have these holdover meetings once a day in the evening except Sundays.

SO, during my first holdover meeting, they informed us that their would be no holdover meeting tonight (Sat) and there would be no staff on site on Monday b/c of Labor Day. All this means that I am going to rent a car and go back to Austin for about a day and a half. Why so short you ask? Because we have these ID badges which must be scanned at the processing center every 44 hours. It basically is taking your attendance. If you go past 44 hours, it kicks you out the system and you have to start the whole process again (OUCH!). So that's what I plan to do tonight. I am going to rent a car at the airport and drive to Austin.

So on a different note, we had NBC training today; which means we had to learn how to wear a gas mask and put on a bright yellow banana suit and then rubber gloves and boots. NBC stands for Nuclear Biological and Chemical. So if an attack is made we can survive under any of those circumstances. But it really was uncomfortable and hot and tedious since many of the FNs didn't "get it". So it took more time than it really should have.

I had CPR as well. That lady was a nut! The way she explained everything and she was just odd in her mannerisms and story-telling. The good part about the training is that we didn't have to place our lips on the dummy to practice giving mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, we just had to show the motion. Apparently some people contracted chicken pox going thru the CPR training and the gave it to many other people. We have been assured that the dummies had been thoroughly cleaned and sterilized.

But at this point I am so happy to be going home that I don't care what we did today. I just can't wait to get home.