This morning we had briefings on cultural awareness, suicide prevention, rules of engagement, code of conduct, and a bunch of other stuff. It’s the beginning of many more briefings to come. It was an all day affair. We skipped PT this morning just to make it over to the auditorium for the briefings at 0700. And they lasted until about 1600. Some of the instruction was good and important and other stuff just boring. I wanted to fall asleep because some of the instructors were so boring.

We were informed this morning that thousands of people from Louisiana would be coming here to relocate at Ft. Lewis. I guess they’ll be putting them in some of the old WWII barracks like the ones we’re in right now. Our 1^st Sergeant told us to make sure that we have all our stuff locked up and secured because a lot of these poor people have nothing left. So I’m sure I’ll be seeing a lot of Louisianans pretty soon. I’m really glad the Army is doing its part to help them out. Gives me more pride in the Army.

We ate an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) for lunch. Our usual meal when we can’t make it to the chow hall. Then this evening we went to the gas chamber. That was the cool part of the day, getting exposed to CS gas.

Our platoon was luckily the first ones into the gas chamber. I was glad because that just meant that we’d get back to the barracks sooner for chow. The worse part about the gas chamber was the ride on the cattle truck back. I’m the one who initiated it when I began to shake all the CS dust from my BDUs inside the truck. It was so funny but I was the one who got exposed to the dust first. My eyes begin to tear up and snot began to run from my nose. I was cracking up while watching the other pull the windows down and stick their heads out the windows. I was cracking up!

Some of the other guys started to shake their BDUs too because they thought it was funny. I thought it was funny when the truck was going down the road with all the guys’ heads sticking out the truck.