Day 9 - First Aid

Woke at 4:30, formed up by 5:30, and did an ability group run for PT. I'm in the B group (A through D), which runs at a decent pace (about 7:30 per mile), and I'm happy to say I held up just fine, though one kid passed out at the end. He'll be fine.

Barracks maintenance at 6:30, then breakfast at 7:30. We were in the second class of First Aid from 0845 till 1700, with a break for lunch. We studied mostly tourniquet stuff and needle chest decompressions -- the kind of stuff most needed on a battlefield.

From 1800 till 2100 we had "drill sergeant time," followed by personal time. We had our first trip to the PX (post exchange) today, which was "half" fun. Fun in the sense that I could go shopping for stuff that I needed. Not fun in the sense that we couldn't buy anything we didn't need, like ice cream, beef jerky, or soda.

The next things on my things-to-be-stressed-about list is tomorrow's gas chamber, followed by IVs on Monday. I've got a weekend to read about how to do it, but it just doesn't seem to stick in my head when I study it. I guess it's one of those "you'll learn it when you do it" things, but that's a scary thought when you're talking about jabbing needles into people's forearms. I heard we're teaming by bunkmates, and fortunately, my buddy has large veins.

More importantly, I need to find my blue notebook. I think I left it on the fireguard desk; would someone have thrown it away? Or if one of the drill sergeants took it, would they have thrown it away?