Flying into Oklahoma on literally a crop duster type plane was an experience I NEVER care to relive again. I still remember the plane shuddering in the air. How it ever got and stayed airborne is something to think on some other time. Basic training was FUN. I am the outdoorsy tom-boy type girl so I lived for it. The challenge course stuff? Loved it. The yelling and the pushups and the early morning physical training sessions I could live without. The drama of 40 young women living in the same bay for 8 weeks I could have definitely lived without. But all of it was an experience I will never forget. The only thing really having to do with my shoulder though was one incident or rather two I guess..
The first was an obstacle course and for part of it we had to traverse the military's equivalent of childhood playground "monkey bars". The problem was these bars as soon as you grabbed one it moved and was easy to slide out of your grasp. You are also pretty high off the ground. It just so happened I grabbed a bar and it slipped out of my hand. The problem was while I thought I had hold of it I had let go with my other hand and was already in mid swing to the next rung when I realized I had no bars and gravity did as gravity does and I fell. On my shoulder. Well that hurt but I jumped up (once I got my breath back) and nearly finished the course. I couldn't do the very end which I think was climbing a rope but I stepped over to the side gasping in pain and still trying to get the breath that was knocked out of me back. I don't think that had anything to do with ensuing events but I'll never be sure. I doubt it was documented in any case. I learned a valuable trick in basic training. I learned to put the pain and exhaustion in a "box and lock it tight" until I was done with whatever needed doing. Today dealing with CRPS it is a very useful trick as I often have to do that with work or even fun things like going to the barn and riding my horse. I *will* pay for it later but for those moments I can lock it away.
The second was marksmanship training. I am BAD with a rifle. After a day of attempting to qualify, the drill sergeant finally threw up his hands, stood behind me and told me which pop up targets were going to pop up next so I could get centered and have some decent shot of hitting the blasted thing. Defeated the whole purpose of a "pop-up target" but I finally qualified! The grenade launcher and the SAW were AWESOME!! But all that rifle recoil took its toll on my shoulder and by the end of the day it didn't matter how many sanitary napkins we padded that arm with - it hurt and worse the joint started clicking. This could have been a major a-ha! moment if I had caught on quick enough to this possibly being the reason why I would need surgery a few short months down the road. But we aren't there yet.
Basic training finished with our Field Training Exercise and it was fun. As much as a road march and pitching a tent with tornado warnings all around you can be fun. It was hot - heat category 5 most of the last weeks and for that reason we weren't going to get "gassed" with CS (riot control gas), but we still had to carry our gas masks and all our other equipment.
A week later we were done. On to Advanced Individual Training. Training in what you signed on the line for. In my case, 9 weeks of Animal Care Specialist training at Fort Sam Houston, TX. Having a vet tech background already and some college credit to go along with it I rolled through the classroom material easily. We still did physical training but most of the work had shifted to mental preparation so my shoulder was able to take a little breather. Not much to note with AIT. I still had fun, I graduated top of my class (vet tech background) and I rescued 3 feral kittens along the way. I caught them and since we were able to go off base for short periods in AIT, I located an animal shelter and took a taxi out to surrender them. The shelter would not take them because they were not even 2 lbs so I brought them back, got in touch with one of my instructors and he wasn't happy but he let me keep them at the school vet clinic until they got adopted. I am an animal nut. And yes - all 3 were adopted by the time I left.
The other thing to mention is that 9-11-01 happened while I was at Fort Sam. We were getting ready to go to our Field Training Exercise (which was a lot more difficult than Basic's) and I was talking to a man that came walking up that seemed in shock and he said "someone just flew planes into the World Trade Center". We all thought he was joking. We did not have access to TVs, radios, cellphones or any technology to tell us otherwise. Our instructors told us later. Some of us had family in New York and D.C. This was a bad time for all of us but we were all thinking the same thing. We are going to war. And although we had trained for it, we trained for it during peacetime. It was scary as hell. Even seeing it on the news later in the day, it just didn't seem real. Most of us did not get deployed but I am sure some eventually did. Me? I went to Guam...
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