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fiddler · 09-04-2015, 08:16 PM

Alright ya blobs of couch-potato lumps of nothingness, time for another report from the "field". Fall in and act like you know what a line is!

So there's a lot going on right now. I'm not sure if I've said before or whatever, but I do a lot of work with the US Army's Community Outreach Program, and it's an outstanding program. Essentially what the program is, is a community-centered initiative by the Army, powered by Soldiers and Civilians alike to educate anybody who wants to come. The program teaches some 500,000 community classes every year, and every topic from Veterans' Problems, Wounded Warrior Project, Search and Rescue Operations, to Manhunt Operations, Land Navigation (both w/ & w/o a map), firearm safety, and even more that I haven't listed. For instance if a couple of soldiers go to a high school and talk about joining the Army, the career & college opportunities and all of this, that's a part of this program.

School is pretty much back in session now, so Thursday I was actually at two local elementary schools, a local middle school, and a local high school. We had three different presentations (one for each of the different groups). For the younger kids we were talking about Army Physical Fitness, and the President's Physical Fit Challenge. Both of these are geared to provide fun ways for the kids to get active. We set up a miniature obstacle course, and were trying to show the kids that physical activity can be fun.

At the middle school we were talking about the US Army's community promise. If you haven't heard of this, the US Army pledges to build our communities by community service and other things to enrich the communities. So we were talking about projects that they could do that would help enrich their - our - community. One of the common complaints that we got from this point - we had expected this - was that when they try adults tell them no. We solved this by giving them official US Army Community Builders badges. These are just pins that one might wear on the shirt or so. We told them that if they get out there and try to do something to clean up/enrich their community, and anybody gave them trouble, to call us, we'd back them up. We had a lot of ideas flowing, and a lot of it simple stuff that they can do, but stuff that really does help the community. Such as one group came up with a group project idea to plant little trees in random corners where there's just dirt.

At the high school, of course, we had to get in a little bit of recruitment time in. We had 31 enlisted persons representing 22 US Army career fields (myself included in this) and 13 officers representing an additional 7 career fields. We were talking about our various careers, had a self defense mini-lesson, demonstrated the use of the field radio, had the Airborne parachute onto the parking lot of the school, demonstrated some stuff that we felt they should know if they encountered law enforcement, demonstrated some science experiments.

Overall I'd say all four sessions at the four different schools were very successful.

Today I was at a VFD about 45 minutes away, doing a S&R training session with Pumpkin (one of my dogs). She's trained in Search & Rescue, and is great for teaching these sessions. At first it incredibly stuffy, until one of the guys just runs off the pier into the water that we were near and started acting like he was drowning. Pumpkin's training kicked in, and in a matter of seconds she had jumped off the pier and was at the guy "drowning". Apparently these guys had never used a dog in S&R operations (to be fair it's a very small township), and were actually rather impressed by Pumpkin's response. What was more impressive to them was that she, a 70lb lab retriever dragged a 200lb man back to the shore where of course he stood up and walked out of the water.

Also tomorrow, if you're out and about in North Carolina, pay attention! You might see something incredibly cool that is pretty much a once in a life time situation. There is a retired V2 rocket arriving at the Air Force Base here on post, and it's going to the NC Museum of Aviation. It's got quite a ways to go, with MPs and State Troopers running escort. As far as I know, though, it will not be on display at the museum.

That's it! Back to lounging around.

09-04-2015, 08:16 PM	#56 (permalink)
fiddler Music Addict Join Date: May 2015 Posts: 242	Alright ya blobs of couch-potato lumps of nothingness, time for another report from the "field". Fall in and act like you know what a line is! So there's a lot going on right now. I'm not sure if I've said before or whatever, but I do a lot of work with the US Army's Community Outreach Program, and it's an outstanding program. Essentially what the program is, is a community-centered initiative by the Army, powered by Soldiers and Civilians alike to educate anybody who wants to come. The program teaches some 500,000 community classes every year, and every topic from Veterans' Problems, Wounded Warrior Project, Search and Rescue Operations, to Manhunt Operations, Land Navigation (both w/ & w/o a map), firearm safety, and even more that I haven't listed. For instance if a couple of soldiers go to a high school and talk about joining the Army, the career & college opportunities and all of this, that's a part of this program. School is pretty much back in session now, so Thursday I was actually at two local elementary schools, a local middle school, and a local high school. We had three different presentations (one for each of the different groups). For the younger kids we were talking about Army Physical Fitness, and the President's Physical Fit Challenge. Both of these are geared to provide fun ways for the kids to get active. We set up a miniature obstacle course, and were trying to show the kids that physical activity can be fun. At the middle school we were talking about the US Army's community promise. If you haven't heard of this, the US Army pledges to build our communities by community service and other things to enrich the communities. So we were talking about projects that they could do that would help enrich their - our - community. One of the common complaints that we got from this point - we had expected this - was that when they try adults tell them no. We solved this by giving them official US Army Community Builders badges. These are just pins that one might wear on the shirt or so. We told them that if they get out there and try to do something to clean up/enrich their community, and anybody gave them trouble, to call us, we'd back them up. We had a lot of ideas flowing, and a lot of it simple stuff that they can do, but stuff that really does help the community. Such as one group came up with a group project idea to plant little trees in random corners where there's just dirt. At the high school, of course, we had to get in a little bit of recruitment time in. We had 31 enlisted persons representing 22 US Army career fields (myself included in this) and 13 officers representing an additional 7 career fields. We were talking about our various careers, had a self defense mini-lesson, demonstrated the use of the field radio, had the Airborne parachute onto the parking lot of the school, demonstrated some stuff that we felt they should know if they encountered law enforcement, demonstrated some science experiments. Overall I'd say all four sessions at the four different schools were very successful. Today I was at a VFD about 45 minutes away, doing a S&R training session with Pumpkin (one of my dogs). She's trained in Search & Rescue, and is great for teaching these sessions. At first it incredibly stuffy, until one of the guys just runs off the pier into the water that we were near and started acting like he was drowning. Pumpkin's training kicked in, and in a matter of seconds she had jumped off the pier and was at the guy "drowning". Apparently these guys had never used a dog in S&R operations (to be fair it's a very small township), and were actually rather impressed by Pumpkin's response. What was more impressive to them was that she, a 70lb lab retriever dragged a 200lb man back to the shore where of course he stood up and walked out of the water. Also tomorrow, if you're out and about in North Carolina, pay attention! You might see something incredibly cool that is pretty much a once in a life time situation. There is a retired V2 rocket arriving at the Air Force Base here on post, and it's going to the NC Museum of Aviation. It's got quite a ways to go, with MPs and State Troopers running escort. As far as I know, though, it will not be on display at the museum. That's it! Back to lounging around. __________________ Every being is intelligent. But if you measure a fish's intelligence on it's ability to climb a tree, it will live forever thinking it's stupid.