On Errantry

Well, the past few day have been eventful, to say the least. I finally qualified as GTM-3 (entry-level ground search and rescue; see also, grunt and groundpounder) on Saturday - hanging out with the Carroll guys again; they've all become volunteer firefighters when I wasn't looking - and Monday morning bright and early I get an e-mail from my SC asking whether I want to be on the alert list for deployment to the Gulf.

I'm sorry, did you just ask me whether I want my first real operation to be The Big One?

My first instinct was to bellow out "Hooah!" and scrape my gear together, but needless to say my mother was not pleased with the idea of me taking off for a week in the beginning of my first semester. I, of course, was fired up as anything at just the chance and spent most of the day not eating because I was too excited and sounding out my professors about the idea.

Me: "I'm on a search and rescue team [not strictly true; I'm all alone because nobody else in the squadron has current qualifications] and there's a chance I might be deployed within the next few weeks. Is there anything I can do to prepare?"

Professor Whoever: ::blink blink blink:: "Er...yes. If you know far enough ahead of time, I can give you your assignments, but if you miss a test you'll have to take it on the make-up date. So...er...good luck."

So I spent the entire day agonizing over whether I'd be willing to sacrifice my GPA for a chance to deploy and help people out, finally deciding about midafternoon hey, what am I going to remember five or ten years from now - another week spent stuffing my soggy gray matter with chem and calc, or my epic trip to a disaster area?

Yeah, I'm a touch stupid.

By this time I had spent about an hour straight arguing with my mother - school vs. SAR - and had sent off an email to the SC saying I was good to go, which I almost immediately retracted.

Not that it matters - Tuesday morning I woke up to another e-mail that said CAP was closing down ground ops in Mississippi (we'd been working out of MS wing headquarters in Jackson), hence, no need to deploy, and I'm an idiot.