CAST TD-10: I R A Grad-G-8

We began the day with final turn-in of any issued equipment (sleeping bags, M-4 magazines, and such). After that, we cleaned the paint ball guns and their magazines. The latter proved to be a time-consuming task because we had to disassemble each one, and re-assembly was not a trivial effort. It took 20 of us over an hour to get it all done.

After that, we had a final briefing in the classroom, which ended by 11:00. At that point, we went straight into the graduation ceremony. Sorry, no Pomp and Circumstance, and no goofy square hats and tassels.

My official AETC training certificate.

Muck [top photo] and I [bottom photo] getting our certificates.

Tent O residents

(L to R: Dave, Muck, and Abi)

From there, we cleaned out our tents and staged our luggage for loading on the buses at 12:30. We left before 13:00, half to the airport for flights, the rest of us over to Lackland for billeting.

Once at Lackland, we checked our weapons it to the armory, then checked in to billeting. Not to be too indelicate, but it was a real pleasure to make use of a flush toilet for a change! Only one other person, Will, had the same itinerary as I did, so he and I paired up and went to lunch (not an MRE, another welcome change), then to the BX to get a haircut and pick up a few odds and ends for our transit to the AOR.

After dinner--our second meal at Smokey Joe's barbeque shack--I went back to my room to re-arrange how my bags were packed. I had to do that because I was sending some of my unneeded stuff back to Dayton. Fortunately, Muck's wife drove down to San Antonio, and had some spare room in the car for my suitcase. I was able to offload about 25 pounds and one bag, which will make transit to the AOR much easier. Note to self: Don't pack so much shtuff when you deploy.