POW/MIA Vigil

Ok, so every year the Detachment (Det) sponsors a POW/MIA Vigil and it replaces one of our Leadership Labs. This year it was this week. They told us today that it is the busiest week of ROTC all year. It’s good to know that I made it through, and still had a lot of fun.

Wednesday morning, at 0645, we had to be over at the student center for Opening Ceremonies. It was a bit cold, so we had them inside, but it was still really cool. The people from the other branches spoke and there was a speech that a woman, whose dad was MIA for 30 years (from the time she was in her mom's tummy) and they found his body a few years ago. She wasn't able to make it there, but she wrote a very nice speech and it was really interesting to listen to.

After Opening Ceremonies they started a cadet matching. There was one cadet marching in front of the wreath for the 24 hour vigil. Everyone GMC from the Air Force marched and some cadets from the other branches took a few shifts. The shifts weren't bad they were half an hour long and all you did was walk back and forth in front of the wreath with a riffle, and you had to salute the wreath when you were in front of it--21 seconds. It was a lot of fun.

My shift was at 0300, so I had to get there at 0230, so that Cadet Yesil could make sure that I was ready, every one had to. Also there are things that are part of the uniform that we are supposed to wear that were not issued, and will not be issued, the are special for this kind of thing, but they had to give me those things too so that I could look extra spiffy! So, I marched well inside and did a little practicing of what I had to do. At 0300 on the dot, Cadet Yesil walked me out to the vigil and walked the other cadet back. Ok, so not on the dot, because it was SO slow. It's very strange—they’re always telling you to hurry up, but now you have to walk very very slow. It was cool though. While I was out there Amrita and Nick came to take pictures of me. Also, one time this guy came out of the student center and he stopped and prayed—it was so cool! I mean, this is why we do this, to touch people. It was great!

This is the best quality picture that Amrita was able to get at 3 in the morning, but oh well. I am about to salute the wreath.

This is a better angled picture of me in uniform. It iss not the normal uniform though because I have on ceremonial pieces that I don't normally wear.

This is one of the signs that was at the vigil while we were marching.

This is wreath that we marched infront of and saluted.

Yesil was there almost the entire 24 hours; he wanted to make sure everything went perfectly. The only time he missed was a short 2 hour period of time where someone made him go home and take a nap. After I marched my shift we got started talking. He said that over all it was going very well, except that he was getting frustrated with the Army and Navy people. Apparently, they weren't shoeing up, and when they did, a lot of them didn't know what they were doing. The Army was much worse than the Navy, but still. He had to march a couple of shifts for them. The Army liaison for the event told Yesil that every time one of her cadets didn't show, to call her and she would come. He said that she was there a lot! One of my friends is in the Navy and she just happened to march after me and I asked him if she knew what she was doing...he said that she was "one of the best Navy cadets." It was cool. We, me and Jamie--Navy Cadet--stayed for a while and talked to the rest of the people that were there. She taught one of the Air Force Seniors how to check the riffle, while at attention. We don't have to do that in the AF, so we don't know, but he was really excited to learn and it was funny to watch him. Anyway, it was really fun and we stayed and talked for a while.

We also had to go to the Closing Ceremony at 0700 on Thursday morning. It was cool, not as cool as the Opening Ceremony though, they just had the Color Guard come and take down the flags while we stood at attention...it was cool to just be there. After that we, the Air Force, had Parade Practice because we are marching in the Veteran’s Day Parade next week...It's going to be awesome. Well, as, you can probably tell, I didn't end up getting much sleep this week....Tuesday, with the election and talking to people and having to get up at 5, then Wednesday with the vigil all night. I did, however sleep for 7 hours after class Thursday afternoon-night. It was good, but then I didn’t sleep much during the night, so I'm kinda worn out. Oh well, it's off to have fun!