volcanoes, sleepless nights and getting strangled

This morning we woke up at 5am and took a class on hand to hand combat. Needless to say, I didn't feel much like raslin' at 5 in the freaking morning. We learned various ways to defend ourselves and a bunch of different choke holds. My feeling is that if I'm in a situation where I have to choke the crap out of someone, I'm in real trouble. I don't plan on rapping my arms around too many terrorists, but I guess we'll see.

Posting might be kind of slow for the next few days. We are going to do night operations today and tomorrow, so I'll probably be out most of the night and asleep during the day. I have a feeling it might be difficult for me to rest in broad daylight with people walking in and out of the tent, so if that's the case, I'll post my little heart out. Also, my unit is probably going to move to another tent city within the next four or five days. If you are planning on sending a love letter or package you might want to hold on to it for a few more days until I can let you know what my new address is.

Because Army bases always swarm with rumors, and because I like to spread them when possible, here is one I heard recently. As I'm sure most of you know, Mount St. Helens has had a few small eruptions over the last week or so. They predict (I'm not really sure who "they" are) that there will be a relatively large eruption soon. If that happens, and the Portland/Vancouver area is covered in ash, the rumor has it that they'll let us come home for awhile. Probably only for long enough to snow shovel the porch and get back on a plane, but anything is better than nothing. So do me a favor and cross your fingers that the mountain explodes into a ball of fire than that soot rains down for miles. Not to be selfish, but I'd really like to come home for a little while at least, and if I need magma flowing through the streets of P-town to get there, so be it.