Last night was a bit rough. The air conditioner in my room isn’t working (oh, poor baby!) even though the fan blows all the time. I called and told the front desk late last night. This morning I reported it again, as they seemed to indicate they weren’t aware of the problem. I was hoping they could get it fixed while we were gone during the day.
The morning started with concert band rehearsal, which was good for us. We haven’t had much time for that group now that the Army is emphasizing the smaller performing groups so heavily. We do have a few performances this week (Sea World and the on-base humongous medical “mall”) to prepare for. After that I helped work with the WWQ2 (second Woodwind Quintet) who I don’t think had ever met before. Their horn player was receiving training as a bus driver, and I was available to help out. We selected some “standard” stuff from the main group’s stack of music and plowed through it. I think it was a good experience for the new players, giving them a taste of what it’s like playing in a small group. That, of course, was the point. Plus we are planning to have ALL the MPTs perform next week, even the secondary or tertiary ones. The WWQ also has a concert performance co-scheduled with the Jazz combo, and the leader of that group asked if the WWQ2 could also perform with them. Should be fun!
Today was my first experience a the dining facility, which is a far cry from what I experienced during basic training. You pay your $4.25 and then get to choose from main dish (dinner-type) entrees, fast food, “healthy choice” (not sure what that is, actually), ethnic, or a host of other prepared foods. Drinks, desserts, salads, it’s all there in buffet style. Fortunately we got to the facility early enough to have a place to sit; other Soldiers who arrived only a few minutes after our group were forced to sit on the tales outside. I suppose most people around here are more used to the heat than we are.
I got a flurry of phone calls to let me know the redeployment ceremony had been changed from this Saturday to next Monday. Our regular tuba player already has another commitment so we broke in (or maybe “broke down”) the 1SG by having him sit in for most of the afternoon rehearsal session. We also had a substitute player on the trombone part, which was another good experience for him. I’ll need to put together a final music list in the next day or so because we’ll only have one more dedicated BQ rehearsal before that ceremony.
(I’ve been toying with the idea of giving our group a name. Since we never really know who will be playing, or even which instruments might be used, or whether those instruments will be brass, what does everyone think of calling ourselves the “234 Five”? BRASS QUINTET just might not be appropriate all the time.)
After rehearsal we met in the day room to watch a few minutes of the Army’s introduction to modern combatives. It’s interesting that up until just this year they were still teaching bayonet tactics at Basic Training, even though I don’t think they ever issue bayonets to anyone, ever, anymore. Today’s close-quarters fighting will require hand-to-hand skills, so they are taking pieces of lots of different martial arts and other fighting techniques, integrating those skills with physical fitness training, and rolling it all into an integrated program. It’s actually quite intense, involved, and there are several stages of qualification and certification. One of our E5’s attended the course and is certified (level 1 I think) so he is now passing along some of those things on to us. There was significant anxiety about this training from many of our members, who tend to be musicians, desk jockeys, students, etc. Not many of us are really “built” for close-quarters fighting.
After the video we rode the bus over to the large, non-AC gymnasium where they had wrestling mats set up for us. The uniform was our ACU (regular field uniform) with the top turned inside-out, and no boots. After a bit of jogging (forward, sideways “skips” and backwards) we moved into some neck stretches. The ones on our backs were pretty benign, but then we did some where we were in a kneeling position, put our heads on the mat, then went up to our feet. Supported by our feet and heads (and sometimes hands for stability) we lunged forwards and back to stretch our necks. Then the same was done starting from our backs, then arched backwards so we were on our feet and heads again. Seemed a bit scary at first, but everybody was fine.
What followed were a series of practiced movements such as the “shrimp drill,” “bear crawl,” “alligator crawl,” forward rolls, and much more. All of us were spent physically. The “bear crawl” involved kneeling above your partner who wrapped his legs around your back, and his hands locked behind your neck. Then the person on top got up on his hands and feet and crawled, carrying the partner, across the mat. The “alligator crawl” is a modification of the wheelbarrow that we all did at pioneer parties or family reunions, except at each “step” the person on the mat does a full pushup as well. The scariest one for me was doing the various forms of forward rolls, which involved “falling forward” but as you tip over, you tuck your head down and roll over onto your back. I’m the kid who never dared to do a front flip on the trampoline growing up, so it took a few tries to get over the fear of landing on my head, breaking my neck and being paralyzed for life. Of course it ended up being quite simple, although I think my neck might be feeling a bit sore right now.
I was proud of ALL of us for participating, and especially those who had more vocally expressed their trepidation earlier but were doing their very best, and even saying they wanted some coaching from peers who had been through the training recently so they could get the movements and exercises done correctly. We were certainly wiped out by the time that was over.
Upon arrival at the hotel I found that my room’s AC STILL was not working. When I called the front desk they said the maintenance guy had already gone home, but they would call and have him come back. So while waiting for him to arrive I thought it best not to get in the shower and miss his arrival. (It also meant I got to eat dinner heated up in the microwave again, but that’s OK.) The first guy came, pulled the panel off the wall, and turned everything off. The compressor had been running for several days straight since the thermostat was set at a reasonable temperature but the room temperature was always much higher, and the equipment was quite hot. Turns out he has a similar situation in another room, so he went over there while waiting for my AC unit to cool off. After a re-start we waited for about 30 minutes, but the room temperature didn’t go down at all. He has called the AC company, and had a second maintenance guy stop by, but still no luck. It’s possible the AC company might still come out tonight, but it sounds like they have had similar problems in several rooms lately and have had to change out the compressor capacitor, which of course aren’t kept in stock here in San Antonio. Thus they might have to order parts from Dallas or further away. We’ll just have to see what happens; it’s 9:30 now and I’m not really wanting to stay up too much longer waiting for this to get resolved.
But complaining about it doesn’t help anything.
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