Blue Thunder

So...

Meghan and I just returned this morning from 2 days at Blue Thunder. It is a field of large military tents including a tented hospital. The weather was a cool 97 degrees with a heat index of 110. Boy - what a treat!

This place makes the Tri-State area seem like a winter wonderland. Of course we were required to wear our BDUs (Battle Dress Uniform) in the heat. BDUs are those camoflouge outfits that we military people seem to find so fashionable that we wear them daily!

So were were broken up into 2 groups. Each had a 2 hr 45 min exercise. It was a mass-casualty drill. It was both scary and exciting all at the same time - AMAZING training. The whole point of these 2 days were to experience what life is like on deployment to another nation (such as Iraq). While baking and sweating in that sun, it was hard to believe that in Iraq the weather is actually hotter: 120 degrees.

We recieved no weapons training. They said that since we are medical personnel, we would only receive weapons training if we deployed. And even then, the Geneva conventions state that as medical personnel, we can only use the firearm to defend our patients or resources (food or the hospital).

We also had the fortunate opportunity to eat 3 MREs per day. These are prepackaged meals that you can cook by simply adding water. They are very balanced for nutrition and are meant to sustain someone in the event of a food shortage (each one totalled about 3000 calories). Clearly I didn't eat all of each MRE, so I have some samples to bring back home (of course, I'm assuming that everyone is dazzled by the idea of MREs).

So our spirits are high. We have 4 days left. All testing is complete. We have an official briefing (oral report) and a short paper due tomorrow at 0700 (yup, we're getting into the habit of using military time - quite strange). Otherwise we have no more assignments! We cannot wait to get back to our lives; they have not been our own for the last 3 weeks. We are looking forward to starting the internship, as it will be a more normal job experience. Like this experience, it will be good training - but less intense, and at an 8am-4pm schedule.

We fly back to TX at 6am on Saturday July 30. We start our residency at Wilford Hall Medical Center (at Lackland Air Force Base) Tuesday 8/2/05.

We miss all of you!

All visitors are officially invited to claim one (or more) weekends to come visit. We are very excited to host you all:)