No... Always Volunteer Yourself!

As my recruiter told me a long time ago, the supposed NAVY acronym (Never Again Volunteer Yourself) is not the way to experience the military. I suppose some people are content to sit on their bum and do nothing... but for me, I want to DO as many things as I can. What an opportunity, to do whatever, whenever.

A week and a half ago that worked out for special duty... and they asked again today, for help on the Coronado base. I had no idea what they needed, but anything would be better than trying to act busy. It was a Seaman and a BM2 that wanted extra bodies for picking up the state flags and ceremonial trappings from an event at a hotel on Coronado. It took us some time to locate it, but we finally did and got it all in the pickup.

These things were to be unloaded and the flags set back up in the lobby of the Command Center on the Amphibious base. Somehow, Oklahoma's flag ended up first in my hands...

The rest of the day was to be spent at an office across the street, helping them pack up and move downstairs. But first, they told us to go to a ceremony in the lobby of the command building for "Black History Month". They had members of the Buffalo Soldiers local chapter come and speak... one of them actually was from one of the original divisions, which was still in existence during WWII. And a retired Navy Lt. Commander got up and gave King's "I Have a Dream" speech from memory (I had never heard it before... so it was quite moving for me).

After this had ended, we all (mostly chiefs and officers, including a vice admiral) had a home cooked potluck type of lunch... ! Breaded and baked catfish that made my mouth water, pork ribs, mac n' cheese, green beans and potatoes, cornbread (and more), along with deserts. I settled on baked apples with cinnamon... yum!

Then we spent the next two and a half hours working very hard packing up office supplies and moving them to a temporary storage compartment. My hands were filthy by the time we quit! Gosh! They want us back tomorrow, so I will certainly volunteer again! :)