Day 4: Medical In-Processing? Well yes...but actually no.

Today was a pretty uneventful medical in-processing day. We formed up in the morning for accountability, sang the Army Song and Chaplain Song and started the day with some chow. After chow we had a class on mission command and how the Chaplain corps interacts with different elements of a command and staff team.

Afterwards we hopped on a bus and went to dental and hearing in-processing. I overheard the ladies at the desk saying that they didn't plan on this many chaplains showing up. They expected maybe about 30 or 40 of us and instead 100 of us showed up. Not only is our class unusually experienced, but it is unusually large. That explains why it took us nearly 4 hours to get out of there and that is with them telling me that I would need to come back and do my hearing test again some other time.

We drove back to the classroom building where we ate MRE's for lunch. I had a spaghetti and meat sauce MRE which is one of my favorite ones.

After lunch they split us up into three groups that we will be with the rest of the week. Each is based on which day we will be going through the SRC where we get a quick physical and make sure we are up to date on vaccines and stuff. I was supposed to go through today but the bus was late and as we were getting on the bus I was informed that I would not be going through SRC today and would have to wait until Wednesday. But since I was already assigned to this group I would just sit in the waiting room for 3 hours while everyone else was getting screened.

I know at some point in the rotations my group is supposed to see the Chaplain Corps museum which I am hoping I get to do tomorrow instead of Wednesday while I am at SRC.

After hanging out at SRC we came back and went to a class on Worship in an Operational Environment. It was really interesting. We learned about how we balance the role of providing religious care in a pluralist environment while also not compromising on our religious beliefs. We were given an assignment to attend religious services of faith traditions other than ours. It seems like an easy assignment and an interesting one.

After the class we went and practiced drill and ceremony for a bit. I think our group picked it up pretty fast. We have enough prior-enlisted that everyone caught on really quick and had no issues.

We went back in to the classroom and had dinner which was Hot A's. Turkey and gravy. My squad is the S4 in our platoon and we are the duty platoon so we stayed after a bit and cleaned up and restocked everything.

In all the day was pretty lackluster because of all the sitting and waiting. Looking forward to tomorrow where we will be a little more active and engaged in lessons! Hooah

Emotional Intelligence Lesson: A person with strong relationship management has a firm handle on their own emotions and seems to feel what the person they are talking to feels. It helps that person feel like the other relates to them and understands them.