Feb 13, 2011

Spouse Day

Saturday was THE coolest day ever.
Ok, maybe not the coolest, but it was unexpected so it made it better.
I got to go to my husbands work and see, learn about, and actually touch everything he works with every day.
After being a military spouse for almost 8 years, I have NEVER been to a "Spouse Day"
Not because I didn't want to go, but because they really don't exist at most bases.
If you haven't gotten it from any of my other posts, I totally LOVE it here.
The people.
The scenery.
The uniqueness.
The Base.
EVERYTHING!
Really, I haven't come across anything I don't like so far.
Well..except, of course, being so far from EVERYONE I know!
I'm getting used to that, I just hope they are...

Now on to the good stuff.
First off, they had free child care.
That made it easier for me to go considering Will was home sleeping from working the night before. (oh boy, that's another post...ug)
Anyways, so when I got there, I dropped the kids off...tried to pry Maci out of my arms, and I was off!
(Can you tell I was excited? Don't worry, the kids did awesome, made new friends, and ate too much...didn't even know I was gone.)

Oh ya, and Will's commander...he's LDS.
How cool is that?
There is only one other Security Forces commander that is LDS.
The commander and his wife were on the tour the whole time. He and his wife are super nice, humble, and genuine.
Considering Gennaveeve (a fellow SF spouse) and I are the only families who are LDS in Wills squadron, naturally we hit it off with Heidi
(the commanders wife)
:)

All of the stuff I saw was really cool to me. It might not seem that interesting I guess, but after hearing about all of this stuff for so long, it was neat to finally see it.

The first thing we did was see the armory...where everyone gets their guns for their shift.
Then we got on a bus and went over to the K-9 section.
This was probably my favorite part. We learned all about how they take care of, train, and feed all of the military-working dogs.
They currently have eight dogs. Two of which are deployed.
The most interesting fact I learned was that after a dog comes back from a deployment, they quarantine that dog for 10 days.
Each dog works with one trainer.
The dog IS their partner.
We walked through the kennel area, (SCARY!!! They were barking and jumping so high in their cages) and out to the training arena.
They put on a little demonstration...SO COOL!
If you have never seen a military working dog in action, and you get the opportunity, GO.

These dogs are mean I'm telling ya. It is so cool though because the dogs listen to every command. They could be in the middle of attacking someone and if their trainer gives them the command to stop, they will. They showed us that, and a lot of other cool things.

This was the "bad guy"
The dog had a grip on his arm and the guy swung him in the air around and around.
What a bite.
I was too busy watching to get a picture of that, and a lot of other things...



After that we went to CATM...which means Combat Arms Training and Maintenance.
Are you staying with me?
This is where Will, and ALL members of the base do their weapons training and qualifications.
We got to see the shooting ranges and learn about, see, and touch the
GUNS!


That's Gennaveeve



Afterwards we went to see the Phoenix Raven section, which I was so excited about since this is what Will hopes to do eventually.
Ravens are basically security personnel for the flights the military takes.
They are gone an average of 15-20 days a month, flying to hundreds of countries.
It is a really great opportunity to see the world and they only have Raven sections at 5 bases.
They taught us how they train in case a threat comes close to the aircraft.
One guy even got tasered for us.


This guy got tasered for us.
The one on the ground ;)

After that we ate lunch (free food!) and headed back to the squadron to pick up our kids.
It was really good to meet other spouses and see Will's work.
I had such an awesome time.

3 comments:

Lisa said...

Wow, that's really cool that they do that! I love the picture of you with a gun, hahaha :) And I'm feeling really afraid of those dogs now.

Chris and Sarah Seymour said...

how fun....glad you went and had a good time.

Melanie said...

That looks pretty fun! I can't say I agree that I love the picture of you with the gun...I'm not gonna lie, it kinda scares me that you are smiling so big. JK. Glad you had fun!