"Echo Flight, Hooah!"

Encampment! Ahhhh... my pride and joy. I firmly believe that Civil Air Patrol encampments are good for the soul. ES will always be there, even once one turns to the Dark Side, but encampments... encampments make this life worth living.

I happen to be head-over-heels in love with the position of Flight Sergeant. For whatever reason, I just love being in the "right hand man" role, and that's what the FS is. My Flight Commander is C/1st Lt Thomas. When a few other cadets on line staff found out, they told me they were sorry for me. I honest to goodness don't know what they're talking about, though; working with him has been swell.

For some reason, we tend to work well together. He gives the orders, and I carry them out with a whole bunch of cheerfullness, oorah and gumph. It's that simple. Ohh annnd yell at the basics.. and be hyper energetic, because that's how I roll.. and be obsessively organized, which he appreciates.. and get swollen fingers from making bunks for these mentally challenged cadets...... but that's beside the point.

Anyhoo, to sum this encampent up, it's been both great and disappointing.

Disappointing because it's just two lame weekends, it is not what I would define as highspeed or hardcore, and no one knows the meaning of PT, for Chesty Puller's sake!

Great because it is still an encampment; and not stressful because after WCA, it's a cakewalk.

Sure, it has its challenges. I have four cadets who are literally mentally challenged/retarded/suffer from some sort of mental illness. Can you say lost covers and OIs!? Yelling at them does not work, because if they don't understand what I'm saying, it doesn't matter how loud I say it. It has taken much patience and understanding to keep them in line... even when I really do want to just whip out a big stick!

However, none of the multiple challenges I've run into have been impossible, and that is what matters. I take everything with a healthy dose of positive attitude and infectious energy, and I honestly feel like I can't be stopped! lol. No matter how frustrating things get at times, I wouldn't ever call myself "stressed."

Okay, let's cut to the chase. I'd love to do a minute-by-minute commentary.. a great dramatization of a story, because there are truly too many amazing tales... but that would take, oh, days. So. Issues so far:

1.) The Fab Four. Let's call them Cadet V, Cadet T, Cadet R, and Cadet G, respectively. I cannot count how many times I've made these little guys' bunks. No matter how many times I demonstrate the simple act of using boot blousers, Cadets V and G simply don't get it. Cadet G is soooo short that he CANNOT physically keep up AND stay in step while marching. It just isn't possible. He also has a horrid OD green blues belt (do they even make those!?) as a web belt. Kill me now. Why doesn't Cadet T have his OI!?!? "Someone must have taken it, ma'am!" I suppose I should be grateful... at least he answered me. Apparently his vocal cords are working today. WOOT. Nevermind that there is no way an OI can simply "fall" out of any cadet's cargo pocket. Puhleez.

2.) Being hit on by six guys at once (so far). I mean, I'm flattered, guys... honestly. It's just that first off, this is encampment! We don't do that at freaking encampment! Second, I'm taken, and they know that... but continue their amorous overtures. I swear, the next time [name withheld] whispers "You are so sexy" into my ear while I am sweating my butt off making a bunk, I will break my clipboard over his head. Not even kidding. And besides, I don't even have the arrogance to assume I'm actually that hot. Haven't these guys heard of the 2-10-2 rule!? They're going to get home, away from the female-deprived environment, and realize that they actually weren't flirting with a 10 like they thought they were.

3.) Cadets who can't keep in step. It's sooooo easy, people! Drill movements may be challenging if you don't know them, but just staying in step while marching in a straight line? There is nothing else to focus on while marching! Listen to the dang cadence... "Left, left, left, right" is as blantantly simple as it gets! You may not be smart enough to figure out "Hutt, toop, threep, fourp," but come on. It's LEFT, and RIGHT. Get with the game. Do we need a pet rock, kiddies??

4.) The [unspecified] squadron. They are honestly ridiculous. They bring a billion people to encampment, which is great, but they also act as though they run the thing. They have mostly female senior members, who think they are still in charge of all of their squadron's cadets, and can therefore bypass the chain of command. Not at all cool. Case and point:

Saturday night, I got assigned to CQ duty. I was the only cadet on staff who had to do that.. apparently they were running short on females, and I got picked. Fine with me; I said nothing about it. The exec staff found out and (during the cadet staff meeting) told me to, at the very least, change the schedule so that I went on the last shift instead of the middle one. I did so.

I go hobbling back into the bay after our staff meeting, well past midnight, and get into my berth. The one of this squadron cadets summons me and lets me know that Major [unspecified] wants to see me right now. She's in her personal little office, still in her bunk. I stand at attention next to her bunk while she chews me out for changing the schedule. I politely and respectfully say that it was not my choice; that I was told to change it by the exec staff. She says, "I understand that you cadet staff people think you need your sleep, but this is not fair to us!"

"US!?" As though their squadon is this on entity. The nerve. She said this a hundred times before ending her long rant, and before I was allowed to slink back to my berth for the night... not even understanding, in the end, what the problem was. She was truly being nasty about it.

Well, the way they do things at GLE is that each CQ shift wakes up the next (obviously). The very last shift wakes up one of the cadet staff, who then wake up the rest of the cadet staff/senior members. Also, the Navy bays have motion sensors in them that regulate the heating system. If your firewatch falls asleep or stops moving, guess what.. the heat shuts off!

Apparently, I was in for some revenge. The shift ahead of me did not wake me up. In fact, they may not have had their shift at all. I recall waking up about ten minutes to 0400, which is when I was to be woken up, and then I went back to sleep. I was never called. I didn't recall hearing boots patrolling the area, either.

Consequently, we froze. That was a friggin' cold night/morning. Especially with ONE thin little Navy blanket apiece.

At about ten minutes to 0500, I woke up. God bless my internal clock. If I hadn't woken up right then (and certainly no one else did), we would have been in a terrible fix. With no one on CQ to wake us up, nobody would have gotten up until....... well, until the males realized that none of us were awake when they'd already be on their way to the grinder!

So, that's the [anonymous] squadron for ya. [/end rant]

Hmm, now for a story with a bit more humor.

I don't remember what day it was, but one morning after chow, I was hollering at my cadets outside the galley... yelling at them to double-time to formation; all that good stuff. C/1st Lt Marshall, who is on the S.E.T., called me aside to let me know that I "got a Navy recruit in big trouble this morning," and didn't even know it.

Apparently, he was "checking me out" while in line in the galley. I wonder what I was doing at the time! Hmm, either eating, or barking at cadets. Anyways, because of that he didn't see the line move forward. Then he was distracted again, and didn't see it stop. The end result was a bit of a crash, and him getting pulled out of line by a few RDCs who then promptly made his life a living [hot place].

I wasn't really sure what to say to Marshall; umm, "my bad!?" It's not my fault! It's not like I was dressing seductively... it's BDUs for crying out loud! It isn't as though there was anything I could do to prevent such an incident. Jeez. Hence my comment on the 2-10-2 rule... poor female-starved recruits. To quote Ethan, at basic a recruit becomes attractive if she simply "has girl parts." Hahahaha.


TO BE CONTINUED