Day Three: Hurry up and wait

My estimate yesterday about the efficiency of the operations was pretty accurate. All of the "hurrying up" of the first few days translated to lots of "nothing" the rest of the week. Today, I accomplished nothing, along with a few hundred other people. Not completely nothing. I did bounce back and forth between 4 people over the course of a few hours, with lots of waiting in between, but finally did get the "ready to deploy" stamp on my orders and permission to take a few days of leave (harder to get than I expected! And my agonizing over whether to fly home didn't matter, they wouldn't have approved me going that far away). Some of the guys are all done except for shots -- glad I got all mine before I left or I'd be sitting here until Friday like they are. Instead, I'll spend the evening doing "professional reading" and then tomorrow a friend is driving up from North Carolina to rescue me from boredom for the next 3 days. And I'll get dropped off at my next stop in South Carolina, too! Much better than sitting around doing nothing and then riding a bus down with the rest of the group. And I'm sure the home cooking is going to be better than the Subway, KFC, and Rice King I've been dining on for the last 2 days. I got my first care package today! Apparently the USO has an "Operation USO Care Package" program where people can contribute to a package. It has lots of neat things in it and will be very useful. The donator included their email address with their note so I'll be sure to send them a thank you. Obviously, for the rest of you, you'll have to wait until I get to my final destination before I can offer a mailing address. This will probably be my last update for a few days, while I'm enjoying my last break before the "real" combat training starts on Sunday. In the meantime, it's your turn to write something to me!