Week 4 - Days 3-5 (Wednesay-Friday)

Chaplain Initial Military Training (CIMT) is over and phase one of CHBOLC begins on Monday. In CIMT we have learned the basic skills of being a soldier. In phases 1-3, we we learn what it means to be a chaplain in the Army. In CIMT we had the largest class ever at this school in SC. and on Monday we will add 41 new students to the class growing to a total of 171. Two weeks later, we will loose about 40 students who have not yet finished seminary and we will again pick up a few more.

The pace has really changed as we have moved toward phase one. We now spend most of our time in the classroom receiving briefs (lectures) on various topics. One of my favorite ones recently was from a retired chaplain that served in WWI, Korea, and in Vietnam. He spoke to us about what it meant to be a chaplain.

One of the not so exciting events this week was our TA-50 gear inspection. We had to haul our gear over to coleman gym and lay it out on the floor for inspection. Can your guess which chaplain forget to bring his sleeping bag? Our platoon still took third place out of five, which means, I guess, that we are average.

The big benchmark this week however was the dawning of the beret ceremony. Up until this point, all we could wear were the field caps (which I love). From now on though, we will look like the rest of the Army unless we are in the field.

We have the weekend free including most of today (friday). I plan on laying low, studying for a test next week, and watchiing Die Hard 287, or what ever number it is.

I love you all! Thanks for all your prayers and support.