What?!

So you all remember how much I loved my time on the range blowing stuff up with Special Forces...well, yesterday I got to go again...yay!

I had a blast. I got to shoot one of their super cool M4s with a scope and silencer...which was AWESOME! I was on the range from 0730-1530 with the morning being M-16 firing, and the afternoon being M-9 firing. I love my job sometimes...

There are inherent dangers to going shooting with SF, however, not the least of which is the fact that they sometimes forget to yell, "FIRING" before they put it on burst and dang near give you a heart attack while your minding your own business, stuffing magazines on a 15 minute break... Such as was the experience that I had. One of the SFs decided to let a few off without warning and I didn't have my ear protection in...

This happened in the morning, so the rest of the day I was rather entertaining to try and communicate with. I didn't actually feel my ear drum tear, but I'm sure that's what happened as I can hear nothing but ringing on the right side of my face, and I only have about 50% on the left side...hope it comes back :/

Well, other than not being able to hear any conversations and merely smiling and nodding leaves one open to a few jibes here and there. The SFs are all enlisted and take every opportunity to poke fun at the officer, all in good fun of course...

Last night, however, proved to be the most challenging as I had to get decked out in my service dress and attend an official Air Force birthday party...we are 62 now...in case anyone was wondering...and the social hour/dinner was 4 hours of me saying, "WHAT!? HUH?! or...SPEAK INTO MY GOOD EAR!" which usually just led to the person shaking their heads and walking away. I had several lengthy conversations with many people and have absolutely no idea what was said...it was very funny though, as I'm sure all of you who know me can imagine... because I had absolutely no volume control as I could'nt hear myself...its like in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation..."GRACE....she died thirty years ago...NO!...THE BLESS-ING!!!"

The best part though, was all of the ceremonial standing up and sitting down and toasting which more or less requires you to hear the commands given in order to follow suit as appropriate. Well, in the state that I was in last night, I was about 2 seconds behind everyone else to perform all of the actions indicated, which made me think of the time when I was in that ballet/dance recital video at the age of 4...dad, I know you remember this one...where I'm the only one completely out of step and off-time for the duration. At least this time I wasn't wearing a funny pink costume!

I'll let you all know when my hearing returns to normal...til then it should make for some interesting commentary!

...Jane...out...