recovered from my 1st injury

About 10 days ago, I sprained my ankle. During PT, we were racing up and down a hill...bear crawl up and crab crawl down...squad versus squad. A crab crawl is where your butt is just off the ground and you support yourself on all 4s. It was still dark (a little after 6am), the grass a bit wet, and going as fast as I could down the hill. My left ankle turned inside (my toes ended up facing my right leg...if you can picture it) and folded underneath me. Ouch. I finished PT and limped back to the room, took some Tylenol and hoped it would be OK. It swelled up and went black and blue. So I had to see a sports injury doc....grade 2 sprain. No running for 2 weeks. It is nearly healed now so I expect to run on Monday. We have about 10% of the class on some form of injury profile at any given time...I am lucky to be coming off mine early. Our official/record PT exam is in 3 weeks so I don't want to lose any of the momentum that I have up to this point.

We completed the criminal law section of instruction this week. It accounts for about 40% of our instruction. The last week of it was doing mock court martials. It was interesting. My knowledge of the rules of evidence are definitely weak. Probably the hardest thing for me...you rarely ever object in immigration court...so yelling out "Objection, Your Honor" was tough since I'd then need to cite the actual rule that I was basing it on...that is what they don't show on tv...after you say "objection!", you have to say why..."it violates Rule 404, character evidence is not admissible to prove conduct, Your Honor." And then the other side has to respond with why that objection is incorrect or doesn't apply. Not easy for me. But I got through it all right.

We are now in fiscal law (a bit like contracts). A big snooze fest. Think tax law. Not the most exciting of topics. The instructors know it, too....in order to make us pay attention, they give us pop quizzes every afternoon (since it has happened every day, they really aren't "pop" anymore!). I've actually done pretty well on the quizzes, but it is really tough to pay attention in class. Basically, it covers what the JAGs must do in their legal review of any acquisition....so if the unit buys a pallet of bottled water for a field exercise, the JAG must make sure it is done with the appropriate funds drawn from the appropriate fiscal year, etc. Supposedly, this is a busy area for the JAGs as the Army buys lots and lots of stuff.

Many of you know that Uncle Skip passed away last week. I can't believe it. He was fine a few weeks ago. Got sick all of a sudden and left us. After my father, one of the smartest guys I've ever met. He was the tech guy before anyone even knew what tech was. Unbelievable loss to our family. Just can't comprehend the fact that I won't see him again. He has always been such a fixture in the family...

My orders came this week telling me that I'll be going to Ft. Sill, OK for my officer training. So I'll probably leave here on May 9 and be in Oklahoma until July 24.