Guess I shouldn't get accustomed to reporting in at 1200 hours. In just a couple days, I'll be 6 hours into my schedule by 1200 hours. And to get to that point, I'll have to wake up quite a bit earlier than I normally do. Not since my daughters were screaming infants have I woken up at such an unwelcome hour. Soon enough, I expect the screaming at me for not getting up will include much more colorful language than my girls could muster in their infancy. Perhaps anyone can be placated with the appropriate bottle. But I'm not going to test that theory until my first Army paycheck by which time I'll likely to have become completely oblivious to my wake up calls and my multiple alarm clocks, a fact that my colleagues in the neighboring rooms will hardly fail to notice.

But I had to show up at 1200 hours today. I followed another carload of soldiers into the main gate of Ft. Lee, but directions given to me hadn't made much of an impression. If intricate directions had ever been relayed to me, by the time I got through the main gate, the instuctions had become simply "Hang a left", which would have been technically true if I had taken 2 rights first. Oddly enough, the maps of Ft. Lee we were given didn't seem to indicate where the building I was supposed to go to was. So after many combinations of lefts and rights and u-turns and swearing, I returned to the front gate and asked for directions (which in fact our welcome packet had instructed us to do).

We had to show up in our Army physical fitness uniform with 2 copies of our orders and a photo ID. The instructions didn't specify what we couldn't bring with us. So, I left my reading glasses in my car and proceeded to the appropriate building. After entering the building, I immediately got at the back of the line of other officers and slowly wound our way down to a table where we had to sign our names and write our e-mail addresses. Since I had left my glasses in the car, I had to take it on faith that what I was writing actually matched my intention and wasn't writing over what another person had already written or scribbling on the table as my long last name stretched well past the alloted space. But I'm used to this. My name never fits. When blocks are provided, there is inevitably one space lacking. Vallandingham becomes Vallandingha and is so indicated on mail I've received since time immemorial. Lacking 2 spaces, it becomes Vallandingh, which poses the greater challenge to pronounce. Most people stop after g, but the more ambitious try to aspirate the h, usually with comic effect.

Those in charge of the training are called the cadre. They would call us Sir, but wouldn't salute us during training, apparently because continously saluting 100 officers would prove overly taxing in the summer heat. We were told to drink water. And more water. No soft drinks were allowed in class. No coffee. Water, in an Army-issued canteen. And leave the enlisted soldiers alone. Don't use your newly-gained officer authority to make them do pushups. Don't correct their infractions. And don't mow them down by speeding on the base. There is no mercy with regards to speeding. One mile per hour over the speed limit and you might be tagged. Don't drive and drive. It's a career-ending mistake. And don't try to find a significant other while at Ft. Lee. Just focus on the mission and make it to Charlottesville safe and sound. So, drink water. Don't speed. Don't booze and cruise. Leave the enlisted soldiers alone and your dating options should not include any of the people you see walking around in uniform.

Lots of paperwork. From applying for a government credit card to filling out insurance forms to forms about reimbursement for travel expenses. Having my glasses would have facilitated all this for me. At times, I wondered if I placed the answer in the right boxes or placed Charlottesville as one of my daughter's names or indicated my current mailing address with a X. In a couple of instances, I suspected I accepted and declined the same thing in the same paragraph. I actually can read without my reading glasses provided what I'm reading is at a distance. In fact, taping the forms to the person sitting in front of me would have been ideal. I could have seen them, filled them out correctly, all at the small price of punching holes in his newly-purchased Army PT shirt.

One of the cadre was throwing numbers (addresses, zip codes) at us so rapidly that my mind began straying to numbers with which I was already familiar. So if you happen to receive mail addressed to 1st Lt. Vallandingha, then you'll know I was thinking about you at the time. Looking at the person's papers who was sitting beside me didn't help much since I couldn't see the numbers anyway. I turned my papers in fully convinced that I would never receive my pay and had actually signed up complete strangers for miltary health care benefits.

We were told to always keep a picture ID and a copy of our orders with us while in uniform, even PT uniform. Our PT shorts had a pocket on the right side, a fact that I had previously overlooked. If I had known that, I would have purchased a size of shorts slightly larger than the ones I actually purchased. Thinking I would quickly drop weight while in training, I purchased shorts that were quite snug and I was deathly afraid of tearing a hole in them while struggling to squeeze my driver's license and a copy of my orders into the small pocket. But I managed to squeeze them in and will likely leave them there until I lose enough weight to increase the slack room necessary for extrication without perforation. The simpler solution - taking the documents out after removing the shorts - seemed hardly appropriate at any stage of in-processing.

We later were issued canteens and safety belts for our PT uniforms. In the canteens we could place water. We were to report every morning will a fully-filled canteen. Though I puzzled over the conflicting orders to hydrate copiously and always have a fully-filled canteen. Since our names were to be placed on the canteens tomorrow, simply draining someone else's canteen proved to be an unsatisfactory solution. Knocking back a quart or two prior to entering the classroom seemed to be the way to go, though I wondered whether this strategy would also require a more generous bathroom break schedule.

Soon after receiving canteen and safety belt and one short briefing from the cadre, we were released for lunch. I reverted back to taking rights, lefts, and u-turns and swearing, but did find a convenience store to grab a snack before heading back for the afternoon session. During the final session, our group was divided up into two platoons, and further subdivided into squads, then teams. The platoon leaders were chosen by the cadre, largely on the basis of rank and experience. Squad leaders and team leaders were volunteers. After an exchange of contact information, we were released for the day.

End of Day One.