Today was Family Day at Ft. Lewis, and I, being part of an Army family, felt obliged to go. I really thought it wouldn't be fun, but it turns out I was wrong. The activities on the schedule were things like shooting lots of different kinds of machine guns (no thanks!), driving a Stryker (hmmm... maybe), and taking part in a Halo tournament (I'd rather not, thanks so much).
So we got there at about the same time our friends Dana and Andrew Figer did. Dana and I climbed around a bit on a Stryker, got in the hatch, tried on the helmet... you know, all the things you can do to try to picture what it is really like for these guys on live machinery.
The following pictures are a sort of play-by-play of the day that ended up being quite a lot of fun.
Climbing up to the hatch.
Almost there...
Sitting in the driver's hatch, PRETENDING like I'm driving.
Getting the tutorial on Driver's Safety. Man, can you imagine how much trouble I'd be in if I wrecked the Stryker on my first test drive?
I couldn't help but notice there were no cup holders for my latte. That is just a design flaw. I had to make do.
Here I am in the personnel part of the vehicle after driving through a muti-terrain, 1.5 kilometer course. I drove over hills (and got a little bit of air), over logs, through swampy ground, and of course on the road. It was SO much fun.
I imagine it's not a piece of cake when our guys are driving these things for real, in combat, but for today, it was a great time and a learning experience.
Hmmm... at Ft. Knox, they never DID let me drive a tank!
So we got there at about the same time our friends Dana and Andrew Figer did. Dana and I climbed around a bit on a Stryker, got in the hatch, tried on the helmet... you know, all the things you can do to try to picture what it is really like for these guys on live machinery.
The following pictures are a sort of play-by-play of the day that ended up being quite a lot of fun.
Climbing up to the hatch.Almost there...
Sitting in the driver's hatch, PRETENDING like I'm driving.
Getting the tutorial on Driver's Safety. Man, can you imagine how much trouble I'd be in if I wrecked the Stryker on my first test drive?
I couldn't help but notice there were no cup holders for my latte. That is just a design flaw. I had to make do.
Here I am in the personnel part of the vehicle after driving through a muti-terrain, 1.5 kilometer course. I drove over hills (and got a little bit of air), over logs, through swampy ground, and of course on the road. It was SO much fun.I imagine it's not a piece of cake when our guys are driving these things for real, in combat, but for today, it was a great time and a learning experience.
Hmmm... at Ft. Knox, they never DID let me drive a tank!
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