Well, my days serving as the Commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company in the 227th Maintenance Battalion At Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, had come and gone. And my fantastic vacation to the island of Guam with my family had also come and gone. It’s funny how time flies when you are having fun. And it is also funny how time seems to drag on and on when you are doing something boring and mundane. But I must say that I didn’t really have any dull moments where I performed boring and mundane tasks, even while working on the staff of the Eighth United States Army G4. If you read some of my posts about the time I spent on the staff of the Eighth United States Army G4, you may recall reading about the new general that came in and thought he was going to whip us all into physical shape. Well, if you did read those posts, you may recall that what actually happened was that the general promptly fell on his face and died of a heart attack while attempting to show us just how out of shape we really were. Oh yeah. That went really well. You may also remember reading about my involvement with the Hash. More recently, I have been talking about how I was getting ready to leave Korea, and the challenges of raising small children while on active duty in the military. More specifically, I talked about some specific escapades performed by my son whom I dubbed the master of disaster. If you will recall from my most recent post, my son learned the hard and painful way that Superman cannot fly in real life. Rather, he learned that Superman reacts to gravity just like everybody else. He falls. And the higher the distance from the ground, the harder the impact when he hits the ground. By the way, if he accidentally crashes into a large boulder on the way down, the rock will win. It’s funny how that works. Well, the long and short of this sad tale was that my son broke his arm just two days prior to our departure from Korea. As a result, the doctors at the hospital couldn’t even put a cast on my son’s arm because they had to let the swelling go down. And they said that the swelling would also increase and decrease due to the variable air pressures as the plane changed altitudes so they had to leave his arm in a soft wrap. They said the best thing to do was to wait until we got to Hawaii and get his arm put into a cast at Tripler Army Medical Center at Schofield barracks. Thus, I finished my out-processing and my family and I got on a plane and flew from Korea to Hawaii for vacation. If you will recall, some of my Guam stories dealt with the subject of flights from hell. In one of those flights from hell, I described the nightmare of transoceanic flights where you are trapped on a plane with screaming kids. Okay. This was one of those flights except that my son was the reason that it was the flight from hell. The master of disaster had created the scenario for the flight from hell. I am quite sure that his arm must have hurt like hell from the changing pressure as soon as the plane took off. But the problem was that I could not get him to shut up to save my ass. Finally, another passenger sensed my dilemma and came to my aid. He identified himself as a doctor. The wizard was quick as well. He noticed a huge soft wrap around my son’s arm and asked if the arm was broken? I replied that it was and that my son had just broken it two days prior. The doctor indicated that he thought he had something that would help and he disappeared. He returned a few minutes later with a small bottle in his hand. He told me to feed two of the small pills to my son with a small sip of whiskey. He assured me that they wouldn’t hurt my son, but that the pills would definitely put him to sleep. I did as he instructed and my son was asleep in what seemed like a few minutes. Several people around me thanked me for getting my son to be quiet. I told them not to thank me, but to thank the doctor. When we arrived in Hawaii, we had reservations at the Hale Koa Hotel, a military resort hotel on the shores of Waikiki Beach. We had envisioned relaxing and enjoying some beach time on one of Hawaii’s finest beaches. Well, that’s what we had envisioned doing. Things didn’t exactly work out that way. As soon as we settled into our room at the hotel, we caught the shuttle over to Tripler Army Medical Center to get my son’s arm checked out. Since we were guests at the Hale Koa Hotel, we were given tickets to attend a luau during our first evening at the hotel. As a result, we had to make sure that we were back from the hospital in time to make it to the luau by 6:00 PM. While we were at the hospital, we learned that the swelling had not gone down enough yet to put my son’s arm in a cast. Thus, the doctors told us to come back the next day. They made us an appointment for 10:00 AM the next day and told us to make sure that my son did not go near the water. Okay. You are on an island surrounded by water and your mission: do not, under any circumstances, go near the water. What the hell?!? You might be able to tell that to an adult or a half grown child. But to a toddler? Yeah right. You might as well try to dry up the ocean. Good luck with that. Especially since our hotel was right beside the water. Yes Sir. This vacation was shaping up to be one hell of a fine vacation. We spent the whole first day of the vacation in the hospital and didn’t accomplish a damn thing. What a waste. Other than the luau, day one had proved to be one helluva significant exercise in futility.
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