Onward, Upward

Long time, no post. Just remember, no news is good news.

Spc. McFlute is 15 days from graduation. 14 days from Family Day. 13 days from DBFD (day before Family Day). 12 days from...

Spc. McFlute continues to spread cheer and encouragement everywhere she goes and to be a light in a fairly dreary place. In fact, I am told (by Spc. McFlute, no less) that at a recent "Kumbaya Session" her peers expressed appreciating for her good attitude and her sticktoitiveness (not a word). When pressed for a complaint the best they could muster was "You don't swear enough, #*^$%#@."

Monday, Spc. McFlute brought the final PT Test (FPTT for you military types) to its knees. By to its knees, I mean to say that she passed and not by the skin of her teeth. What a relief to have that behind her! Her last big obstacle will be "Victory Forge." I expect this to last from Saturday to Friday. Essentially, Victory Forge is a lot of running around in the woods shooting things, with a few obstacle courses and some ambushes thrown in for good measure.
As I understand it (always dangerous...sometimes I think things would run more smoothly if the folks at Fort Relaxin understood the running of the program the same way I do) , the final few days will be full of paperwork and anticipation.

Spc. McFlute constantly asks me to pass along her gratitude for the torrent of cards and letters she continues to recieve and for the thoughts and prayers that she knows are thought and said on her behalf. The support of friends and family has made this experience bearable for both of us.

Left foot, right foot, left foot, right foot...

...left foot, right foot. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Re....

That's how it feels from my end, anyway.
For Spc. McFlute it is probably more like "LEFT, LEFT, LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT. LEFT, RIGHT (&%#@@&^)LEFT, LEFT (&^%#^%$#)RIGHT (**&^$#^&%@%@)...."

Get it? People in the Army yell a lot, have limited vocabularies, and have trouble putting one foot in front of the other
(This doesn't apply to SSG. Horn-Stallion, SSG Bone-Star, and 96.3% of the soldiers that I personally know or will meet in the next few months).

 

Now that I have that out of my system put that out there for later elaboration, on to the news of the day.

The Rockets win in convincing style!!
(I won't be convinced until they do it two more times).

Also, Happy Mother's Day, Mom (and moms). If you haven't called your mom yet, and you live on the West Coast, I hope she does too.

The news from Spc. McFlute has been sparse. Today I was graced with a phone call that lasted all of 52 seconds, and for the last 12 seconds there was a woman in the background (a Self-Esteem Improvement Program participant) yelling "Yo time up! You bess hang da phone-dup!"
Cleary, an attractive and articulate woman who is not working through any frustrations from a neglectful childhood or current frustration at her position in life or lack of friends.
The information that I received indicated that Spc. McFlute had information to pass on to me (Mr. Spc. McFlute, at your service, unless you actually need something, much like Army recruiter and personnel officers) regarding her exit from Initial Entry Training. Spc. McFlute indicated that because her phone time for Mother's Day (there are no mothers in the Army, only...nevermind) was severely curtailed, she would be enclosing said information in a letter that she would drop in the mail on Monday morning.
Excellent! That letter will probably be here to greet her when she arrives in the home city of the 2009 NBA Champions (as long as the Mavericks are those champions...) on or around June 14. I am confident in making this prediction because I received a letter on May 9 that was written on April 30, posted on May 1, and postmarked on May 6. Spc. McFlute sent that letter "overnight," so I did a little math, carried the 3, and arrived at the conclusion that a normal letter would take between three and four weeks to travel a distance that could be walked in one or two weeks.

Spc. McFlute should have finished the second of three phases this week (I would include a link to show what WHITE PHASE consisted of, and what BLUE PHASE entails, but it looks like the Army forgot to pay the Chinese again for their domain rights and the Fort Jackson website is down again) and will be (I assume) moving on to the third and final phase. Spc. McFlute qualified on the shooting range and continued to improve at her PT. The BLUE PHASE includes two overnighters (the first starts tomorrow, from what I could hear over the wounded SEIP participant yelling in the background, and is three days of maneuvers in the field and the second will be in two weeks and lasts an entire week), the PT test, and graduation (God willing).

Spc. McFlute, from what I can gather, is still physically doing fine but is getting pretty frustrated with the inconsistency in the allowance (and promised allowance) of liberties and in the application what she was led to believe were the standards in decorum, excellence mediocrity, and personal interaction. Nothing shady is going on (that I am aware of) but the SEIP participants are extremely inconsistent in the ways that they instruct.
I hope that there is some kind of law against SEIP participants becoming parents, but the following exhortation from Paul the Apostle can be applied to all of those in positions of authority:

Fathers, do not provoke your children, so they will not become disheartened. (Col. 3:21)

Now, if someone would just teach those SEIP SOB's how to read...

I think that I have done a pretty good job of hiding my frustration in this post, but, seriously, I find this process to be pretty frustrating. I am (very occasionally) convicted, however, that God is sovereign, and I am dumb.
Because of my faith, it is not logical to worry or be angry, yet often my first reaction to frustrating situations and news is anger, rather than confidence. I have confidence that Spc. McFlute and I are in the place (places, unfortunately) that God would have us be at this stage of life and that we have good things to look forward to. We also will be given the strength, patience, love, ninja skills, or whatever is necessary to cope, to His glory, with whatever situation we may be put in or through (hopefully, through).
Mr. Spc. McFlute would do well to keep this in mind and react based on faith and reality rather than fear and emotion.

Uphill, both ways...

Today was a good day.
We are about one month away from graduation (God willing), over the halfway point, and suddenly the SEIP participants have figured out where the phones are.
That's right.
9 minutes and 58 seconds of uninterrupted (except by static from the ancient pay phone) conversational bliss. Spc. McFlute also talked to her mother today.
There are still a number of things that have to happen, including the dreaded PT test in a couple of weeks, but at least things are happening now!
This week Spc. McFlute qualified on her M16A2, which means now she will move on to grenades, Anti-Tank guns, and the 50 caliber machine gun (the thing that is mounted on the back of the Hummer in Halo). Color me jealous!

Spc. McFlute has confirmed that she is indeed happy and healthy and that her blisters are healing/have healed. There are several long marches in the next few weeks so that is welcome news. Additionally, Spc. McFlute's roommates have shown themselves to be very encouraging to each other, which is an answer to prayer. She says that many of the female rooms are not as fortunate as her room.

This is a quick one, because there is nothing to complain about today.

I will leave you with this question:
Why were the first 25 years of life without my wife so much easier than the last 6 weeks?