Deployment

It's getting harder and harder to go to war and they don't let just anyone play these days. No, there are fitness requirements and preventive medicine requirements and training requirements and form filling requirements. Holy crap, the forms!

We left Mudville during the wee hours, with only a HyVee #3 and a bad cup of coffee to tide me through to St. Louis. And tide it didn't , so we stopped in Hannibal for a couple of those hotdogs off of the roller thingies at the gas station. Mmmm, now *that* tided me over to St. Louis. The plan was to get a light, nutritious lunch before reporting to the UDC (or Unit Deployment Center (the acronyms begin)) for the formwork. This part of the plan worked fine, and could easily have played right into the third part of the plan, which was to eat our fill of the very unclean and godforbidden barbequed pork prior to heading to a place where they actually believe that pork is unclean and godforbidden, but we know better. Pig is merely the other white meat, just like a McNugget, but oh so unclean. Mmmm.

Sadly, part three of the plan went to shit, as the highly recommended pork shop near the hotel was closed on Sunday, as were ninety percent of the forty restaurants near the hotel. We eventually found a very nice Northern Italian place, but the thinly sliced proscuitto was no match for my salivatory images of pulled porcine products. Perhaps we can find something in the District of Columbia tomorrow during the layover. Being south of the Mason Dixon Line is a good sign, but I believe Washington is know for the other kind of unclean pork.

Ah well. Life is full of disappointments. Deal with it.

Not particularly disappointing, but sort of annoying anyway, were the forms and training that occurred between parts one and three of the plan. [Let's call it part two, just for kicks.] Blood pressure and temperature checks for the crew, to make sure we haven't died since leaving our doctor's offices last week. Then the fingerprinting and hostage training - part and parcel of the same event. In the fall of 2003, a DNA test was all they required, acquired through one little drop of blood. This time, a form for the prints, a form for complex personal security questions, and ninety minutes of video.

One of the team joked that we failed the entire scenario, as we were successfully held hostage and required to watch the damned thing, by our own people, no less.

Well, a few more forms tomorrow, then wheels up in the late afternoon.

It's unknown at this time what sort of communications capabilities we'll have on the ground, but that's part of the adventure.