Day 8-9: Let Them Eat Cake!

    Back to the grind of going to bed at 11 and waking up at 3am.  Though I did sleep in one day this week - all the way to 6:45!  It’s strange, but I’m still not that tired.  My brain is functioning a stop or two below normal, but my body isn’t going to be admitted for scientific research on the topic of the undead anytime soon.  Well. Maybe once my unit arrives, but it’ll be worth it then.

Is this a photography class?
        This week has been a bit of a blur so far, with only one of the photog interns on the highway of stress, covering the sole unit currently operating at LTC.  The rest of us float around with cameras in hand, overlapping and pinching each other’s elbows in the tiny corners of cake-cutting rooms packed with Alpha Company Cadets like sardines.  Granted, all four of us were on various assignments, tagged by three writers and a videographer (he was bored).  Eight of the eleven PAO interns, all celebrating the 236th birthday of the Army with a slew of glaring Drill Sergeants and grinning Cadre, all stylishly sporting the various hues of nylon-blended t-shirts graciously gifted by the PAO office, the photogs clunking around in our squeaky stiff combat boots, two Nikons and two Canons casually swinging at our respective sides, the writers hunkered over their notepads, scribbling down quotes here and there.  We’re all dying for the pace to pick up in the sense of action shots and quippy beats, and continuously being reminded that we should enjoy this time while it lasts.
    Personally, if I’m going to mosey around like a target of Woody Harrelson’s, waking at o’ dark thirty, my downtime piled with freelance work, I’d rather be spending my long hours shlepping around in mud, climbing through rope ladders, getting a good angle in the sparkling sun of a crying cadet rather than impatiently scanning the crowds for a name tag that doesn’t exist with my belligerently underexposed 200, stuffed in the corner of the barrack’s company room, waiting for the CO to finish his inspiring pep talk so I can get a mug shot of a smiley cadet.  I still love it - this is exactly where I want to be, surrounded by uniforms and the bright, shining, angry faces of Drill Sergeants who hate us on sight.  I can’t say I much enjoy the tinkling bells of my alarm at 3am, or the rope burn the shoelaces of the combat boots leave on my fingers as I lace up every morning, but I do enjoy listening to a DS hardass explain the meaning of leadership, influence, fatherhood, and fondly recount a story of how they delicately shove a cadet or private’s face into a situation to teach them a hard-earned lesson, with a tone of godly authority, and the tug of an affectionate smile at the corner of their mouths.
    I can’t wait to meet and get to know my own cadets, to become a subconscious part of the unit, sweeping along the outer links of a formation like a second thought.  With my bank account a little loftier, and a new lens on the way, I’m looking forward to early pre-dawn mornings with them, seeing them grow physically and mentally tough, into soldiers of the US Army, independent, focused, passionate citizens of adulthood.  And on graduation day, when their families embrace this new stranger, blown away by the pride and strength in their loved one - that’s my favorite part

Waiting to go to the barracks for an assignment, playing with the AF-settings.