Hey! Just a quick update, for any of you who still happen to read my blog!
I've been kept quite busy these several months. Mostly with CAP- Civil Air Patrol, the US Air Force Auxiliary. I have a staff position in my squadron (the smaller, county-based units. I'm a Flight Commander), and have a few positions in the Wing (the state of Washington). Those are temporary, and include Cadet Training Instructor of the Cadet Basic Training School for WCA (Western Cadet Academy), and until recently, C/Executive Officer of the Challenger Program (Emergency Services and Search and Rescue training). I'm still actively involved in Challenger, but since it's recent overhaul, the staff has been wiped-out and still need to be re-established. I've been trying to start a Color Guard for Competitions next month, so until then, I will be busy with my nose stuck in some manual or other. Mostly AFMAN 36-2203. ;) I've also arranged for a tour of McChord AFB for my squadron, so one of these days we will go and explore a C-17, the Fire Department, EOD, SFS (Ravens), aeromedical evacuation training facility, air tower training facility, and the maintenance facility. We will also tour the O-DFAC, the best place for food on the planet. :D
Other than CAP, I've been busy with school. I'm taking a sweet chemistry class, and manage to keep my grade up by the essay-summaries in my lab book. teehee. I'll be enrolling in Running Start at Olympic College this next fall, and am excited to finally "start" school. Last fall I ran Cross Country with North Kitsap High School, lettered, and placed 3rd on Junior Varsity and placed 4th for JV Olympic League. I love to run! After a minor hip injury took me out right after the season, I'm finally back to running and will soon begin the track and field season as a middle-distance runner.
Let's see.. I got my permit (driving... flying is going to have to wait), and went out on my first drive today. I succeeding in COMPLETELY freaking my mom out for the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 4-5th time in my life. I think next time I'll take my papa-san for a drive. He's a little harder to ruffle. :)
I also discovered that my dream of becoming a fighter pilot for the Navy is exactly that. A dream. Because of my height and weight, I would end up snapping my spine if I ever had to eject. So, instead of going through USNA and getting a Navy commision, I'll go as USMC. That way, after I get my commision, I can choose between combat pilot (in case technology advances for us shorties) or attack helo pilot. Flying (correction, being "repelled" in) a Supercobra for the Devil Dogs wouldn't be half bad. ;)
Well that basically sums up my life for the past several months! I've been truly blessed by a wonderful God who has shown me His mercy.. My life has been changed and I enjoy every minute of it! I pray that God will also bless you and that you will come to realize the saving power of his love. Take care, and until next time!
Cat
26 February 2009
11 September 2008
September 11th, 2001
What were you doing on that Tuesday morning seven years ago? What were you doing this morning? I ask that all of you devote a few minutes of your time to those who lost their lives in that brutal attack on our country, if you've already done so, do so again. I was (by coincidence) in the same place at around the same time this morning that I was seven years ago, and it was tough. I was in constant playback mode, and it was very sobering. One thing I have never been able to understand is this: how can someone see pictures of those towers, before, during, and after the attack, and not feel the need to do something about it, to retaliate? Should we have sat and done nothing, instead of go after Bin Laden and the Taliban? Sure, we've gotten rid of the Taliban, and Bin Laden is in hiding, so our job is done now, mission accomplished, right? Wrong! There are still terrorists (al Qaeda) who wish to do evil in the same way as Bin Laden's Taliban did, and are we going to allow another 9/11/01 to happen? 2998 people lost their lives that day. God forbid that it takes another tragedy to show the deceited, ungrateful, selfish people of America that there is an evil in this world that needs to be confronted and extinguished.
Lest we Forget-
Lest we Forget-
24 August 2008
Cascade Falcon XIII, Basic Encampment Summer 2008
Oorah! It's been awhile since I've posted, and with good reason! I left on the 9th of August for Washington Wing's (WAWG) basic encampment, Cascade Falcon XIII (CFXIII), got back on the 15th, and then left again for Camp High Rock (CHR) at White Pass, WA on the 17th, and then got back from that on the 22nd. Because I have so much to post, I'm splitting it up into two posts, with photos over at Picasa. So, I will begin with Cascade Falcon XIII.
Cascade Falcon is the basic encampment for WAWG, were all CAP cadets, regardless of current grade, attend their first encampment as a Cadet Airman Basic. The week is spent in training which includes everything from drill to customs and courtesies, PT, military bearing, leadership, aerospace education, and tons more. This particular encampment had three Squadrons and six flights. Squadron 1 consisted of Alpha and Bravo, Squadron 2 Charlie and Delta, and Squadron 3 Echo and Foxtrot. I was part of Charlie Flight (the girls' flight), Squadron 2. Now on to the good stuff... we arrived at Camp Murray to see lines of cadets standing at parade rest, waiting to be filed into the Admin building and signed in. I have no clue how long the initial check in process took, but it did take awhile, and the whole time we were in line we had staff yelling at us to "Move with a purpose!" "Look straight ahead!" "Position of Attention!" "Did you just look at me?!" "That was an officer! why didn't you brace him/her?" etc. Very unnerving. I finally got inside, had to answer a lot of questions about medical stuff, and then it was time to go outside. I went out, was greeted an officer that was standing right there, and was directed to report to my flight sergeant. I screwed that report up, tried again, got it right, and then waited for more cadets to report and fall in. Pretty much that entire first day (Day 0) was a shake down, and it was murderous. The worst part was when my Flight Com or 1Sgt would come up behind me, ask a question, and scream at me when I addressed them wrong. It took me all that day to learn to differentiate between their voices. Day 1 was basically the same sort of shake down, when the staff picked and pried at you to try and break you. I think we got up at 5am to the sound of whistles and Flight staff yelling at us to get out of bed and on the line now it shouldn't take this long. A minute or so later we were outside and on our way to The Field for a bout of PT. For me, that PT was no sweat. Couple warmups, a short run with jodies and cadence, and that's that. It was gradually increased throughout the week, but until the big PT test on Thursday, it wasn't too difficult. Anyway, we were marched back to our barracks, and because Squadron Two (S2) was up on The Hill, we had about 5 minutes to change from PT gear to BDUs. Crazy hard, especially for us girls. But we did it before Delta, our S2 counterpart. The rest of the day continued with the whole stressed-out-frenzied-basics-are-fun-to-watch, and by the end of the day, we were all able to sleep a few hours before getting up for Day2. That's basically how the entire week was spent, with a few glorious highlights that I'll enlighten you on. Wednesday was pretty fun, as we got to use all that pent up energy and excitement without getting yelled at for it. We were shown some infantry tactics, and so we did buddy rushes up and down a big field a few times. Basically you start in the prone position (face in the dirt), push yourself up with your left hand, shout "I'm up!", run a few paces, shout "They see me!", and throw yourself prone with "I'm down!", and repeat, repeat, and repeat again. For the buddy rushes, you just do that in a leap frog pattern, and when you are with a team, the gunner and assistant gunner leapfrog and the rifleman and teamleader leapfrog. We did the team rush and secured a building using the ADRAC (is that how it is?) and SAFE acronyms, and what those stand for I forget. After that and some lunch chow, we headed out to an acre or so of woods to shoot some staff members. C/LtCol P (Encampment CC) basically told us that there was a downed pilot in the woods, a bunch of enemy, and we had to retrieve the pilot by dividing into a medic team and a defensive team. Only the defense could "shoot" (shout "bang bang bang you're dead" when the enemy is sighted) the enemy (staff with towels on their heads... a few of them, anyhow), but both the defense and medics could be "shot" and "killed" (three minute time out) by the enemy. On our second try we retrieved the pilot and shoved him in the back of one of the CAP vans and so completed the mission. After that, we headed out to another field where C/1Lt B gave us two giant chests, a bag of old army helmets to go around, and the directions to cross the field before you got shot or the enemy found you. Oh yeah, the chests had "confidential" material inside, and we had to keep that from the enemy (more staff members) at all costs. After about three tries, we never completed that mission. It was Charlie and Delta, and each time half of us ended up "dead" in the middle of the field. Some Delta guy tried to rescue me, but ran straight into the line of fire and ended up dead. Another Delta guy tried to retrieve the first Delta guy, and he too went belly up. The biggest event of the day was during evening formation and Charlie flight was awarded Honor Flight Day 4. That was absolutely incredible for me, as I had worked really hard with my team to get that far. Our flight sergeant (C/MSgt R) discovered that the only way to really motivate us to get Honor Flight was the cookies we would recieve for dessert, so that's what he used. "Do you want them cookies?!" "Yes, SERGEANT!" "THEN GET THEM COOKIES!" "YES SERGEANT!!!" We ended up earning those cookies, but unfortunately DFac forgot and we never did eat them cookies. I cried after formation, and that was because when we were dismissed, Sgt R went around a shook hands with everybody. When he got to me, the look in his eyes was beyond words. The best I can describe it is with the quote from Babe: "That'll do pig, that'll do". Thursday was the big PT test, where we had a mile run, pushups, situps, and the sit n' reach to complete and score in. I did a 7:15 mile, which was disappointing, as my record is 6:39. Situps I got about 56, but my record in that is 65. I still did better than most of S2, only a few guys (two?) beat me there. I rocked the sit/reach with a 46 1/2 cm, and grossed out the C/Lt who was scoring that. I also scored pretty high on pushups, with 51 of those. I came in second for the whole of S2, and the guys who came in first got 96. Back up to The Hill, into our BDUs, and over to McChord for the C17 flight. That was pretty darn awesome, and I had a lot of fun. I didn't get to spend as much time in the cockpit as I would have liked, but I didn't really have a choice. I got some spectacular pictures of Mt Rainier before and after the 60^ bank and of the surrounding area. After that, we went up to The Hill, cleaned up our barracks super good for the White Glove Inspection, and then change into Blues for the formation inspection and Drill Eval. We did pretty well on our White Glove (didn't win it, though), but our formation inspection totally flopped. We all got gigged on something, and half of us screwed up our memory work. I didn't screw that, but my POA (position of attention) gig line was messed up (the guidon wasn't exactly straight) and I had an IP on the epaullette button. Dang it. Oh well. We did ok on our Drill Eval, and the stuff we messed up was the stuff that our flight staff had forgotten to teach us. Namely, Hand Salute and Dress Left, Dress were the two we messed up. That night was the Banquet, which was ok. I was sitting at the table right next to a staff table, and those LTs and NCOs were being ridiculously silly. I mean, the basics were better behaved than they were. A little after everyone ate they started giving out the awards. When they started calling up people for Flight Honor Cadets (Most outstanding cadet for each flight), I started getting slightly nervous. I was called up for Charlie Honor Cadet, Smith (Delta Guidon Bearer, awesome cadet) got Delta HC, and Basile got Foxtrot HC. Then came Encampment Honor Cadet, the award given to the most outstanding cadet of the entire encampment. I wad tingling with adrenaline, and could not wait for them to announce the name. So when I heard "Cadet Sedy front and center", I nearly dropped dead. I walked up there, shook the CC's hand, had my picture taken a couple times, and then dizzily made my way back to my seat. The whole of Charlie Flight was waiting for me, and as soon as I got over to my table they were all over me; shaking my hand, fist punching, hugging, shouting, slapping my back, etc, and I just broke down. The support that I got from Charlie and multitudes of other cadets was overwhelming, and I simply could not hold it all in. The next day, Friday, was the Pass in Review Parade. We changed into PT gear and went down to morning formation, went back up The Hill and packed up our stuff. We ate breakfast at the barracks in the courtyard thingy, Charlie in circle in one corner and Delta in the other corner. After breakfast all the officers and guidon bearers were taken away to practice and rehearse the Pass in Review parade (PNR), so I retrieved my guidon and hopped into a van with the officers and guidon bearers of S2. We went down to the parade field and spent a good hour or so (I have no idea, really, as we weren't allowed anywhere near a clock, watch, or other time piece) practicing for PNR. That was fun. All those staff members can be absolutely hilarious, especially when they think there are no basics around. I guess they forgot that the guidon bearers were present. :) The actual parade went pretty well, and Charlie flight recieved two more awards: PT Award (for the highest percentages of PT scores) and Warrior Flight (the most motivated, loud, or jody-awesome flight ). Those two awards are perhaps the most masculine awards of the encampment, so it was pretty hilarious that Charlie got them. After PNR we had some pictures taken, and then we were marched back to the admin building to claim our gear, check out, and leave. On the march back, Sgt R started the "Napalm sticks to Babies" (pretty gruesome) jody with these words: "I want you to sound off, but not too loud, ok?" Of course, all 15 Charlie girls sound off as loud as we darn well could, and were more than happy to show that jody off to all the parents waiting to pick the cadets up. After Charlie had checked out we all grouped together and I lead the flight in a jody that Cadet K had created the night before, and we rocked the place. There was one dude (probably a parent or relative of a cadet) who was video taping us. Whoohoo!! I ended up hanging around for awhile, long enough that we (Basile, Brink, and I) were the last basics left. The kitchen staff had tons of extra snack food left, so they invited us to take all we wanted. That was seriously really fun, as we had been outlawed from sugary foods that entire week, and we ate what DFac served us. I packed up a pretty good-sized box of snackfood to take home, although half the box never returned. It was greatly appreciated by Yours Truly. :) Pictures of Cascade Falcon are over at Picasa, so you can go check those out here.
Next post: Camp High Rock!
Cascade Falcon is the basic encampment for WAWG, were all CAP cadets, regardless of current grade, attend their first encampment as a Cadet Airman Basic. The week is spent in training which includes everything from drill to customs and courtesies, PT, military bearing, leadership, aerospace education, and tons more. This particular encampment had three Squadrons and six flights. Squadron 1 consisted of Alpha and Bravo, Squadron 2 Charlie and Delta, and Squadron 3 Echo and Foxtrot. I was part of Charlie Flight (the girls' flight), Squadron 2. Now on to the good stuff... we arrived at Camp Murray to see lines of cadets standing at parade rest, waiting to be filed into the Admin building and signed in. I have no clue how long the initial check in process took, but it did take awhile, and the whole time we were in line we had staff yelling at us to "Move with a purpose!" "Look straight ahead!" "Position of Attention!" "Did you just look at me?!" "That was an officer! why didn't you brace him/her?" etc. Very unnerving. I finally got inside, had to answer a lot of questions about medical stuff, and then it was time to go outside. I went out, was greeted an officer that was standing right there, and was directed to report to my flight sergeant. I screwed that report up, tried again, got it right, and then waited for more cadets to report and fall in. Pretty much that entire first day (Day 0) was a shake down, and it was murderous. The worst part was when my Flight Com or 1Sgt would come up behind me, ask a question, and scream at me when I addressed them wrong. It took me all that day to learn to differentiate between their voices. Day 1 was basically the same sort of shake down, when the staff picked and pried at you to try and break you. I think we got up at 5am to the sound of whistles and Flight staff yelling at us to get out of bed and on the line now it shouldn't take this long. A minute or so later we were outside and on our way to The Field for a bout of PT. For me, that PT was no sweat. Couple warmups, a short run with jodies and cadence, and that's that. It was gradually increased throughout the week, but until the big PT test on Thursday, it wasn't too difficult. Anyway, we were marched back to our barracks, and because Squadron Two (S2) was up on The Hill, we had about 5 minutes to change from PT gear to BDUs. Crazy hard, especially for us girls. But we did it before Delta, our S2 counterpart. The rest of the day continued with the whole stressed-out-frenzied-basics-are-fun-to-watch, and by the end of the day, we were all able to sleep a few hours before getting up for Day2. That's basically how the entire week was spent, with a few glorious highlights that I'll enlighten you on. Wednesday was pretty fun, as we got to use all that pent up energy and excitement without getting yelled at for it. We were shown some infantry tactics, and so we did buddy rushes up and down a big field a few times. Basically you start in the prone position (face in the dirt), push yourself up with your left hand, shout "I'm up!", run a few paces, shout "They see me!", and throw yourself prone with "I'm down!", and repeat, repeat, and repeat again. For the buddy rushes, you just do that in a leap frog pattern, and when you are with a team, the gunner and assistant gunner leapfrog and the rifleman and teamleader leapfrog. We did the team rush and secured a building using the ADRAC (is that how it is?) and SAFE acronyms, and what those stand for I forget. After that and some lunch chow, we headed out to an acre or so of woods to shoot some staff members. C/LtCol P (Encampment CC) basically told us that there was a downed pilot in the woods, a bunch of enemy, and we had to retrieve the pilot by dividing into a medic team and a defensive team. Only the defense could "shoot" (shout "bang bang bang you're dead" when the enemy is sighted) the enemy (staff with towels on their heads... a few of them, anyhow), but both the defense and medics could be "shot" and "killed" (three minute time out) by the enemy. On our second try we retrieved the pilot and shoved him in the back of one of the CAP vans and so completed the mission. After that, we headed out to another field where C/1Lt B gave us two giant chests, a bag of old army helmets to go around, and the directions to cross the field before you got shot or the enemy found you. Oh yeah, the chests had "confidential" material inside, and we had to keep that from the enemy (more staff members) at all costs. After about three tries, we never completed that mission. It was Charlie and Delta, and each time half of us ended up "dead" in the middle of the field. Some Delta guy tried to rescue me, but ran straight into the line of fire and ended up dead. Another Delta guy tried to retrieve the first Delta guy, and he too went belly up. The biggest event of the day was during evening formation and Charlie flight was awarded Honor Flight Day 4. That was absolutely incredible for me, as I had worked really hard with my team to get that far. Our flight sergeant (C/MSgt R) discovered that the only way to really motivate us to get Honor Flight was the cookies we would recieve for dessert, so that's what he used. "Do you want them cookies?!" "Yes, SERGEANT!" "THEN GET THEM COOKIES!" "YES SERGEANT!!!" We ended up earning those cookies, but unfortunately DFac forgot and we never did eat them cookies. I cried after formation, and that was because when we were dismissed, Sgt R went around a shook hands with everybody. When he got to me, the look in his eyes was beyond words. The best I can describe it is with the quote from Babe: "That'll do pig, that'll do". Thursday was the big PT test, where we had a mile run, pushups, situps, and the sit n' reach to complete and score in. I did a 7:15 mile, which was disappointing, as my record is 6:39. Situps I got about 56, but my record in that is 65. I still did better than most of S2, only a few guys (two?) beat me there. I rocked the sit/reach with a 46 1/2 cm, and grossed out the C/Lt who was scoring that. I also scored pretty high on pushups, with 51 of those. I came in second for the whole of S2, and the guys who came in first got 96. Back up to The Hill, into our BDUs, and over to McChord for the C17 flight. That was pretty darn awesome, and I had a lot of fun. I didn't get to spend as much time in the cockpit as I would have liked, but I didn't really have a choice. I got some spectacular pictures of Mt Rainier before and after the 60^ bank and of the surrounding area. After that, we went up to The Hill, cleaned up our barracks super good for the White Glove Inspection, and then change into Blues for the formation inspection and Drill Eval. We did pretty well on our White Glove (didn't win it, though), but our formation inspection totally flopped. We all got gigged on something, and half of us screwed up our memory work. I didn't screw that, but my POA (position of attention) gig line was messed up (the guidon wasn't exactly straight) and I had an IP on the epaullette button. Dang it. Oh well. We did ok on our Drill Eval, and the stuff we messed up was the stuff that our flight staff had forgotten to teach us. Namely, Hand Salute and Dress Left, Dress were the two we messed up. That night was the Banquet, which was ok. I was sitting at the table right next to a staff table, and those LTs and NCOs were being ridiculously silly. I mean, the basics were better behaved than they were. A little after everyone ate they started giving out the awards. When they started calling up people for Flight Honor Cadets (Most outstanding cadet for each flight), I started getting slightly nervous. I was called up for Charlie Honor Cadet, Smith (Delta Guidon Bearer, awesome cadet) got Delta HC, and Basile got Foxtrot HC. Then came Encampment Honor Cadet, the award given to the most outstanding cadet of the entire encampment. I wad tingling with adrenaline, and could not wait for them to announce the name. So when I heard "Cadet Sedy front and center", I nearly dropped dead. I walked up there, shook the CC's hand, had my picture taken a couple times, and then dizzily made my way back to my seat. The whole of Charlie Flight was waiting for me, and as soon as I got over to my table they were all over me; shaking my hand, fist punching, hugging, shouting, slapping my back, etc, and I just broke down. The support that I got from Charlie and multitudes of other cadets was overwhelming, and I simply could not hold it all in. The next day, Friday, was the Pass in Review Parade. We changed into PT gear and went down to morning formation, went back up The Hill and packed up our stuff. We ate breakfast at the barracks in the courtyard thingy, Charlie in circle in one corner and Delta in the other corner. After breakfast all the officers and guidon bearers were taken away to practice and rehearse the Pass in Review parade (PNR), so I retrieved my guidon and hopped into a van with the officers and guidon bearers of S2. We went down to the parade field and spent a good hour or so (I have no idea, really, as we weren't allowed anywhere near a clock, watch, or other time piece) practicing for PNR. That was fun. All those staff members can be absolutely hilarious, especially when they think there are no basics around. I guess they forgot that the guidon bearers were present. :) The actual parade went pretty well, and Charlie flight recieved two more awards: PT Award (for the highest percentages of PT scores) and Warrior Flight (the most motivated, loud, or jody-awesome flight ). Those two awards are perhaps the most masculine awards of the encampment, so it was pretty hilarious that Charlie got them. After PNR we had some pictures taken, and then we were marched back to the admin building to claim our gear, check out, and leave. On the march back, Sgt R started the "Napalm sticks to Babies" (pretty gruesome) jody with these words: "I want you to sound off, but not too loud, ok?" Of course, all 15 Charlie girls sound off as loud as we darn well could, and were more than happy to show that jody off to all the parents waiting to pick the cadets up. After Charlie had checked out we all grouped together and I lead the flight in a jody that Cadet K had created the night before, and we rocked the place. There was one dude (probably a parent or relative of a cadet) who was video taping us. Whoohoo!! I ended up hanging around for awhile, long enough that we (Basile, Brink, and I) were the last basics left. The kitchen staff had tons of extra snack food left, so they invited us to take all we wanted. That was seriously really fun, as we had been outlawed from sugary foods that entire week, and we ate what DFac served us. I packed up a pretty good-sized box of snackfood to take home, although half the box never returned. It was greatly appreciated by Yours Truly. :) Pictures of Cascade Falcon are over at Picasa, so you can go check those out here.
Next post: Camp High Rock!
07 August 2008
Photo Essay- Around the House
A bee on a flower in a flowerpot
Some type of daisy growing in a flower pot
My doggy, Ranger! Half German shepherd half Australian shepherd. Goofiest, loyalest dog on the planet
My youngest brother, Justin, takes a nap during a movie. Yes, he's actually asleep
My sister L's worst nightmare... Literally. The thing jumped out and scared her half to death; she went running all the way upstairs all out of breath and gasping: "A...A a a s..s.sspider!! I-in my r-r-oom!" We caught the thing, sprayed some Scrub Free into the container, let it sit the night, and then I took the corpse out and moved it into this position for a photoshoot.Enjoy the pictures! Just as a note, this will be my last blog post for a while. I'll be gone at a Civil Air Patrol Encampment and then with my church for a Missions Trip, and then I'll most likely be busy with work and CAP for a while after that. My boss wasn't so happy when I told him I'd be gone for two weeks. I guess I'm the 4th person to ask off, and two of those other people are shift leads. That's about half of the workers, I think. Little less, maybe. Stay cool while I'm gone, and don't you go complaining about the summer heat! It finally heats up and I like it that way. Till later
MitchCat
MitchCat
Books to Read
Michael Yon's Moment of Truth in Iraq - The real happenings in Iraq from 2005-2008. I had no idea what it's really like over in Iraq, but now I've got a pretty solid idea of the goings on in the past 3 years. Details the Anbar Awakening, the civil wars, the media war, Mosul, the 1920 Revloution Brigades and their faithfulness to the US, and much, much more. If you want to check it out at the library, put it on hold now; there's a list of people waiting for it.
Sort of self-explanatory, but Mattew Currier Burden's The Blog of War is a collection of blog writings from soldiers deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan, and writings from the homefront. A great book made from great blogs, but remember, soldiers use plenty of foul language, and it comes up frequently in many (most) of the blog writings. The blog postings mostly detail the daily life of a soldier serving in the Middle East, with a few sections devoted to the homefront. Enjoy!MitchCat
31 July 2008
McChord Air Expo 2008 Photo Essay
Ok, so here are the pictures from McChord. Gianni hasn't posted anything, so I figured I might as well. Just know that these are all from their camera, and most of them his mom took. I take no credit! These are in reverse order of events, but we get to start off with the biggest attraction:
The Thunderbirds in a five-some formation
One of the F16 Fighting Falcons
Opposing Solo Maj. Douglas (6) spirals 3 miles high
The tribute to all US Service Members completed
From the left: Gianni, Stormer, Brink, Sedy (Wasowski), and Sedy (me). PCS in a nutshell.
Brink and I chillax in a Pontiac Solstice. Sweet ride
Can't meet the Thunderbird pilots without getting a picture, so from the left: Maj Douglas (6) Maj Poteet (4), Brink, Nye, Sedy (Wasoski), Sedy (me), Gianni, LtCol Skelton (7), Stormer, and Capt Ploetz (11)
The CAP's glider trailor... That thing was so small, it was really cool to watch them unload it and set the glider up.
Sunday morning staff briefing. I can pick out: Chief Nye (second left), SSgt Bell (middle, back turned), Lt Stancikas (second right), and Chief Brandon (first right, back turned)
Cruz, me, and Doyle.
Part of a column of 50+ cadets before the C17 tour
Heading out to the C17
Cockpit tour! It's pretty darn cool up there
The C17
The Thunderbirds in a five-some formation
One of the F16 Fighting Falcons
Opposing Solo Maj. Douglas (6) spirals 3 miles high
The tribute to all US Service Members completed
From the left: Gianni, Stormer, Brink, Sedy (Wasowski), and Sedy (me). PCS in a nutshell.
Brink and I chillax in a Pontiac Solstice. Sweet ride
Can't meet the Thunderbird pilots without getting a picture, so from the left: Maj Douglas (6) Maj Poteet (4), Brink, Nye, Sedy (Wasoski), Sedy (me), Gianni, LtCol Skelton (7), Stormer, and Capt Ploetz (11)
The CAP's glider trailor... That thing was so small, it was really cool to watch them unload it and set the glider up.
Sunday morning staff briefing. I can pick out: Chief Nye (second left), SSgt Bell (middle, back turned), Lt Stancikas (second right), and Chief Brandon (first right, back turned)
Cruz, me, and Doyle. 
Part of a column of 50+ cadets before the C17 tour
Heading out to the C17
Cockpit tour! It's pretty darn cool up there
The C17I got my camera yesterday, so for now on my posts will not be pictureless! I like the W80, except that the transfer speed is significantly slower than the older W55 model. Hmm. It's still a nice little camera. :)
MitchCat
MitchCat
23 July 2008
McChord Air Expo 08
McChord Air Expo 2008, the first expo McChord has held in three years due to war efforts drew 377,616 people over Saturday and Sunday, July 19-20th. Was I there? You bet I was, along with more than 50 other CAP cadets who came to help out and have a blast. CAP started its Air Expo weekend on Friday morning to set up, settle down, tour the aircraft, watch the Thunderbirds practice, and go to a hangar party and meet the Thunderbird pilots and crew. That was fun. The Spazmatics (uh huh) played all evening during the party, and wow! They were, um, interesting, to say the least. Sort of like a pop band out of the 70's... It was still cool. We had the opportunity to meet the pilots, which was really cool. After a big briefing we settled down to a movie, none other than "The Final Countdown": an old movie about the USS Nimitz (CVN 68) that gets put back in time to December 6th, 1941, and has no real plot line. After the movie I was asked: "what was the point of that movie?" And I could only think of one answer. I haven't the foggiest! Eventually we got to bed around midnight, in tents that the Air Force set up for us and on cots that were provided but that we had to set up. I was cot master, seriously. I went through about 3 tents (each had 10+ cots) and would pop the end bars into place with half the effort that other people were using. There was this one that Gianni couldn't get and I just grabbed the lever bar and pluncked the end bar into place on the first shot. I felt good after that, and kept putting cots together until it was time to form up into flights. hehehe. Up at 5 am Saturday morning and out the door (flap, more like) to breakfast and the flight line. I was stationed at ECP 1 (Entry Control Point), and for about an hour or so had no work to do. The programs hadn't arrived, the public was barely arriving, so I hung out with two other cadets and a senior member until the giant military forklift came with a large pallet of programs. We started knifing the plastic wrap and ties, and then started handing out programs as the people came through the ECP. While I was doing that, an USAF Airman was wanding people for knives or other weapons, and he handed a knife back to me and told me to pocket it. I didn't hear what he said, so I threw it away (like they're supposed to). He saw me do that and said "What?! You didn't pocket that? (seeing the look on my face) Well, next time I give you a knife, pocket it!" Cool! Sure enough, the next knife he confiscated he handed to me, and it made its way into my pocket. Whoohoo! Around 4:00 ish (I actually have no idea, just a guess), all the CAP cadets were pulled onto the flightline to patrol the crowd line while the Thunderbirds performed. We got to watch, and we were super up-close. I was right in front of the parked F-16s, and when they were starting up, those screaming engines just about drove one mad. After the Birds were airborne, we got to sit down and watch. They have some pretty awesome maneuovers, my favorite being the High Bomb Blast and the sneak attack that Maj Weeks used to scare the crud out of the crowd. She just roared over right behind one formation really low and freaked everybody out. The noise is more of a feeling, and you can feel it everywhere. Mostly it's your ears, and it feels and sounds like they're being ripped to shreads. I loved it. Every second of it was amazing. The F-15 Eagles and the F/A-18 Hornets also made some low passes, and those were equally thrilling as well. Saturday night we watched Transformers, which I saw for the first time. It's ok, but not the best. My favorite part was the little Japanese cellphone that got transformed into a tiny robot. Oh I forgot to mention: All the briefings/debriefings and movie-watching took place in a theater across the road. The movies were awesome on the bigscreen. Sunday was also 5 am wake-up time, at least out-of-bed time. I didn't wake up till about 9am or so. That day I was again stationed at ECP 1, so I missed out on all the parkinglot perimetering stuff in the hot sun with nothing to do but stand there and make sure the people had their IDs. This time at ECP I was wanding people, so I was the one confiscating knives. hehehe. I got three of them, and the AF Sgt let me keep them. That's not really allowed, but anyhow. The kids got a kick out of being wanded. Some would walk up with arms outstretched and feet apart, and so I'd do the whole shbang and wand them all over. We really only had to quickly wand the guys, but for the kids that wanted it I'd make them stand there and get wanded. They were smiling the whole time and thought it was the greatest thing. Exact opposite of some of the older participants. This one guy was super angry at me when I discovered his double Swiss Army knife. You have two choices if you get caught with a knife- take it back to your car or throw it away. This guy had taken the bus. So, he thought he could get it around me and he was being super difficult so I told him to talk to the AF Sgt (the same that allowed me to keep the knives), and the Sgt ended up throwing the knife away. The guy was still glaring at me when he came back and I had to wand him again. I didn't feel bad, I was fed up with him by the time he was finally through the gate. We did the same patrolling for the Thunderbirds again, but this time we had to keep standing up and facing the crowd. I sneaked a look at the foursome cross they do, and they missed. I saw it coming, and I couldn't believe it when I saw the fourth plane miss the cross with the other planes by a second. That must've been disappointing, but it was still cool. The narrator decided not to tell the crowd that the "four planes crossed simultaneuosly with less than 50 feet seperating them from each other". Altogether it was an awesome weekend, very fun but very hot and very hard, and a lot of no-repeats for next time. I loved it, and can't wait to do another. I'll have some pictures up shortly. I didn't have my camera (how many times have I said that?), so all I've got are the ones that Gianni's family took. He'll get his pick of the crop and I'll glean the rest of the presentable ones.
MitchCat
Oh I did buy a camera off ALL HAIL eBay, it's a little Sony (only reason for Sony again is because of the equipment I have that's Sony-only compatible) DSCW80, one model up from the old DSCW55. It should be getting here fairly soon, as the seller was an actual business and not a private seller. Whoohoo!
MitchCat
Oh I did buy a camera off ALL HAIL eBay, it's a little Sony (only reason for Sony again is because of the equipment I have that's Sony-only compatible) DSCW80, one model up from the old DSCW55. It should be getting here fairly soon, as the seller was an actual business and not a private seller. Whoohoo!
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