A day in his shoes...er, boots.

Please read carefully...you may never see me in dirty,oversized ACU's ever again. Most of you know, mud is NOT my thing. I don't mind a little sweat but mine is usually accompanied by sports bras and spandex. I don't think my day is complete without a little shimmer on the face. So Saturday I spent the day playing soldier. I was definitely not in my comfort zone. Jason's current unit is a Calvalry unit and deep in their tradition, they rode horses, wore stetsons and spurs and carried sabers at their side. Although now, they fly helicopters, which are faster and more effective, they still carry some of the traditions. In order to gain the right to wear the spurs, you must participate in a spur ride which consist of 36 hours of fraternity like hazing. This weekend, they hosted a Spouses Spur ride for us to have some of the same experiences, just in an 8 hour time span.
The weather was just right for misery. It was COLD, about 30's when we started and then it started to rain. I was assigned to 3rd Squad which we renamed Z troop. We did a 2 mile road march, rode in the back of tactical vehicles, and shot M-4's and .50 cals in a simulator.









We were taken to a field where they had enemy fire arranged to fight us and we were responsible for calling in fire power from 2 awaiting kiowas. I got to do the calls over the radio and it was the highlight of my day. I got to use all my radio jargon to call "Bootleg 29 this is Maneater 6, over"...etc.






We set up claymore mines by low crawling out to a position and crawling back to retrieve it after fire. We also participated in the obstacle course. We started out scaling over bars without using our hands, next we went over higher bars,only using our hands. We scaled a leaning wall and did a fabulous low crawl under barbed wire in RED clay pits. I can honestly say, my lips have never been closer to the ground and I've never been so dirty before. After the course, we ate MRE's while traveling to the horse stables to clean the horses. I can tell you for sure, Pioneer Woman did NOT make the veggie lasagna that I tried to consume. It had pinto beans in it and the pound cake could have used a stick or 2 more butter. At the end of the day, I couldn't feel my feet and my shower was even disgusted by me. I was so happy have hot water!




After a quick turn around, we had a dinner where we were presented with our "spurs" on a necklace and we were the first signatures in the Spouses "order of the winged spur" book. I think Jason was really proud of me for finishing this as we get ready to leave the military. I think I'll be glad I spent just ONE day walking in his shoes...er, boots and spurs.