Day 3 of Mountain Phase

Howdy from Texas, y'all! (Please tell me you heard Paula Deen's voice in your head when you read that.)

So it is the first of October (and my littlest sister's 19th birthday, happy birthday, Cheeser-Squeezer), and the third day of Mountain Phase up in Dahlonega, Georgia. According to my Accuweather app, our men are currently being pelted with about an inch of rain, in 63 degree weather. Sounds great, huh?

However, assuming they're still working (safe assumption), they'll be on day 2 of 4 of mountaineering. Yesterday they would have learned basic knot tying, belays, anchors, and rappels. I think yesterday they were privy to those famous blueberry pancakes -- apparently they're the best Army food ever. Today they're going to be tested on those components. If they fail, they get one retest, and maybe two, but never any more than that. I think it's all contingent on timing... and your RI. "It's a crap shoot with who you get," B said. "Some grade one way, the others grade another. The worst is not knowing how you did until days later, because you get 3 'sustains' and 3 'improves.'" (Civilian lingo: you get 3 things you did well, and 3 things you need to work on.)

These tests are especially important because they're learning the components that they're going to be expected to use during patrols.

Interesting notes:

• apparently Camp Merrill has a lot of washers and dryers for the guys to use. Encouraging! I hope B. packed laundry detergent.... although even if he didn't, he'd probably just do without.
• the best piece of advice I've read is that the guys ought to request "smart" care packages, despite the fact that they'll have a sweet tooth to put Hershey's out of business. My guess is that this advice means to request things that will fill them up and help to fill them out again. I'm compiling a list of "themed care packages" that might help with this information, and I can post it if anyone is interested. 

For the record:

• In this post I am counting Saturday, typically "Day Zero" as "Day 1". So--
• Day 1 = Saturday, Sept. 29
• Day 2 = Sunday, Sept. 30
• Day 3 = Monday, Oct. 1
• Day 4 = Tuesday, Oct 2
• Day 5 = Wednesday, Oct 3
• Day 6 = Thursday, Oct 4
• Day 7 = Friday, Oct 5
• Day 8 = Saturday, Oct 6