Posted by Sarah
The weary travelers have returned from the Land of Mary. We got in last night a little after midnight. The trip was basically unexciting although Corey’s allergies did return shortly after crossing into Ohio and I thought he was going to turn back, but we managed to stay on course. We’ve got a lot of unpacking and then we have to retrieve all of the creatures from their various locations. Hopefully after that, we can return to some form of normalcy, or as close as we can get. After we get settled, I will get the rest of the pictures together and get them put up.
Posted by Sarah
I just thought I would post a few pics from our Maryland adventure. Saturday we ventured out to Havre de Grace and stumbled upon a buoy launching, which is apparently a big deal up here. We took a free boat ride out to watch them drop the buoy and check out the bay. Tonight we went out with the rest of my Indiana co-workers to a place called Wet Willy’s Crab Deck where they serve fresh, whole crab dumped onto paper on the table and you get mallets. I’m not a big fan of seafood but I did sample it before enjoying my steak. Tomorrow night we are going to the Inner Harbor for a dinner cruise. If I survive, I will post pictures of that.
So as some of you know we’ve been exiled to the land of Mary for 2 weeks so that Sarah can learn how to infect..err treat infected people (or contaminated…whatever). Sooo, Maryland is known as the “Free State”. I have an issue with this, for a free state they sure like to control where you drive. What I mean by this is that EVERY lane has a specific function (Must turn here, don’t turn here, etc..) while you might be asking “But Corey, all states do that” Yes, but Maryland also has concrete barricades that force you in many different directions. Just outside our hotel you have no choice but to go right…not left…the roads are all angled in such as way that makes it impossible (and illegal) to make a left…you have to turn right then find a parking lot (or elementary school) to drive through in order to go back left. Odd. On one hand it does cut down on people jumping lanes at the last minute or causing other odd traffic situations. On the other though it just seems annoying.
We also got to experience gridlock traveling on the north side of Baltimore two nights ago. 4 lanes of stopped traffic being funneled into 1 lane to merge with I-95 north…the signs said “Alternate lanes”…right…that was a blast. We survived.
-Corey
Posted by Sarah
Today was our last day of the chemical portion of the class. That means several things. It means that when I left the hotel room this morning, I left Corey in charge of packing the luggage up and transferring ourselves an hour and a half southwest to Ft Detrick. It also means that we had our Field Training Exercise (FTX). We did this first thing in the morning to try to beat the rain, which failed miserably. Now, I believe I had previously mentioned that I had to carry the heavy bag of gear back to our classroom on Monday and was not looking forward to carrying it back to the FTX site. Lucky for me, I didn’t have to carry the gear back… Oh no, I had to WEAR it. We had to dress out to MOPP II (see picture). We then marched down to the FTX site, which was a blast, let me tell you.
We did manage to beat the rain for the march and the humidity was just delightful. The rain started just a few minutes after we got to the FTX site and about 30 seconds after we stepped up to MOPP IV, which basically consisted of putting on the M40 mask, pulling up my hood and putting on the gloves. The suit was waterproof, so it wasn’t to uncomfortable, just another level of difficulty. They had different stations set up where we practiced decon, triage and treatment while in full MOPP IV gear. Starting an IV and intubating are a whole new experience when you have butyl gloves and an M40 mask on! 3 hours later we finished the exercise and turned our gear in, a fact for which I was tremendously grateful. I can’t tell you the respect I have for the people in uniform who have to do things like what I did today on a regular basis. Weather or not you agree with the war, the men and women in uniform deserve our respect and admiration.
Posted by Sarah
Greetings to me! So this is my first post on our little website here. We will continue to flush things out as we get time but for now I figured I would update on our adventure to Maryland. We have traveled here so that I can attend a couple of classes to prepare me for my new job at the Newport Chemical Depot (or whatever it’s known as now). The first class is Medical Management of Chemical and Biological Casualties (MCBC) and next week I will have Toxic Chemical Training Course (TCTC). Corey came along so I wouldn’t have to sit around all by myself after class for 2 weeks. And I think he thought he might miss me a little bit (:
Today was Day 1 of class. Since this is a course offered by the military and on a military installment, I was fairly certain there would be some military personnel involved, however I didn’t realize I would be the ONLY civilian along. Oh yeah, that’s right… I am the only person out of 60 in that classroom that is not active, retired or reserve military. It sort of makes it difficult to know how I should behave. The information was interesting and I enjoyed the classroom aspect of it. I knew we would be doing a field training exercise at some point, I just wasn’t entirely sure what it would entail. Today we had to get our gear for the exercise. The instructors told us we should make a formation in the parking lot and we would march to the building where the gear was. My only experience with formations was high school marching band, so that was fun! We then marched (and they march fast in the military!) something like a mile into the woods to a building with the stuff. I was given over boots, over garments, gloves, M40 mask, canteen, belt and a duffle bag I could have fit into. After washing the mask and gloves in bleach and trying on the pants that easily weighed 20 pounds, we packed our gear into the duffle bag and began the march BACK to our classroom. I’m fairly certain that I died about halfway back and somehow my body just kept going. I did manage to make it back in time to collapse on the bus back to our hotel. I’m not looking forward to the march BACK to the building where everything came from!
On an unrelated note, check back often. I plan to compile some information and make my virgin entry into the realm of political debate. I have just recently adopted the idea that I should not sit idly by while everyone else airs their political thoughts and theories and imply that those that don’t agree with those thoughts and theories are just un-enlightened. I don’t expect everyone to agree with what I say, but it’s time that I put my feelings out there.