feb...the second month of christmas.

TEXAS!

and fort sam houston. home sweet home away from home.

the majority of feb was consumed by the best vacation of my life... army medical department basic officer leadership course. this is pretty much exactly my month of february. 

"good morning. you are now officers. i will be spending the next 10 weeks destroying your will to live with power point." 

"weekend! lets go see the alamo!"

there were tons of missions and of course, the alamo! i have to say, the alamo was a little...built up. i mean after hearing the war stories of how they held up in this place against all odds, i imagined it to be a little more castle like. but it was cool all the same. 

"no worries. there's tons of cool stuff to check out
after work...like this old mission"

there was a running trail that passed by all these old missions. if it wasn't 98 degrees and humid by the middle of feb, we probably would have made it past the first one.

"he wasn't kidding. i'm starting to die a little inside"

legit mexican food.

legit pina coladas.

army food

i spent a lot of time eating food. mexican. american. bbq. southern. army. tex-mex. thai. and a few good fashioned MREs. 

Rudy's. Awesome

probably the best bbq i had

chuy's. the best tex mex in tx. 

"today we  will be doing MRT training. since you are the first class,
we are going to try and squeeze this in because it is not scheduled
and you need it. we're going to do it in a 10 hour block of ppt..."

**MRT (master resilience training) is designed to train
officers in dealing with the stresses of deployment,
work, life, etc...**

that 10 hour block didn't include bathroom breaks or lunch.

i think the thought was if the training didn't break you, nothing will

the rodeo! and miranda lambert!? and all that for just $14!

i made it to the rodeo and had a blast. i also walked into a country dance hall to find they
were doing pro bull riding. bonus! 

"bla. bla. bla. bla. bla....bla, take a ten minute break.
don't be back late because we have a 4 hour block of ppt
to get through before your next 10 minute break"

made my way to the capital of tx. austin.
it was pretty cool. lots of texas propaganda.
it works. 

"wait a sec, i thought only the grunts
had to do this kinda stuff"

and i quote, "Boom!"

"southern drawl...southern drawl...fast talking...America is awesome...bla bla...
more southern drawl...have a safe weekend!"


and after those words, we all got up, ran back to 1384 (aka home), threw on some civies, and headed out to soak up some more texas. and that, was february.