Sunday Again

There seem to be a disproportionate number of Sundays here. It seems like every time I sit down to write it's Sunday again. That's good because it means that the weeks are moving by. Today Ch. Ducharme did not preach at church. Due to the surge, there are more battalions here, and each battalion has its own chaplain so they have to share the pulpit. I was doubtful tonight since Ch. Kerr is the same one who spoke on Easter and seemed to be a very feel good type. Today I was proven wrong. He was delightfully expositional, and what I thought was Hillary-esque folksiness on Easter ended up just being the way he speaks. He is Southern Baptist (very) but seeing as this is a military service, when most SB pastors would say "Amen" and pause for the congregation to say amen, he would substitute in Huah for Amen. Only in the military.

Incidentally and unrelated: one year ago today I was still on the boat doing PORSE aka post-overhaul reactor safeguard exam aka nuclear kabuki. It involved mainly paperwork review and walkthrough drills (since the ship was taken apart in shipyard, we couldn't start up to do real drills.) It was also the day before our move out inspection and the only thing remaining on the to do list was to scrub the trashcans which Kate could not do because she was 6 month pregnant. So as I was about to walk off the boat at 2200, one of the inspectors finds me and says he would like to do one last paperwork review with me. I sat in the wardroom with him for about an hour going over training records and other miscellanea for an hour. Finally he got to a report that was over a year old and had been inspected, rather successfully, during the last reactor safeguard exam. He started asking where such and such was in this report, and it wasn't there. I told him that it was not there. He asked the same question 3 times until I finally had enough and told him that I really didn't know what he wanted me to say because it obviously wasn't there. I don't know if he thought it would magically appear if he asked enough, but if he did my answer burst his pathetic little nuclear bubble. I had never been so mad as I was riding my bike home and scrubbing trash cans that night. It is good that I have those memories (way too) recent in my past so that no matter how insane the Army is, I can remember that they cannot even touch the pettiness of the nuclear Navy.