Thursday, July 4, 2013

Chapter Four - Artillery School

4.

                Jack packed up his gear. Infantry school was over, and he was headed to eight weeks of artillery school. He had kept journals of his experiences in Infantry school, and decided that his two notebooks were pretty ratty after being jammed in his rucksack for the past few weeks. He made the decision to get a new notebook when he arrived in Oklahoma for artillery school, and re-write all of his adventures in a cleaner book, perhaps even with more legible handwriting.

                Once at Fort Sill, he bought a few more notebooks for journals and started transferring memories.  He didn’t get too far though, there was too much to do and learn for his specialty, and the studying kept him busy.  He had another dream about the Indian guy, this time the two of them stood in a field and watched red-tailed hawks and bald eagles soaring above them.

He met a Marine who was part Apache named Guy Sullivan. The two had fire watch together sometimes, and during one of these Jack told him about the dream, but not about what had happened during the ambush.  Guy said that perhaps Jack should look into Apache religion, and gave him a book about Shamanism. Jack read through it, but it seemed more New Age than actual Native religion. Though he gave it much thought, Jack decided that New Age Shamanism held even less for him than organized religion. 

 
Artillery school was also a good time for Jack.  It was a competitive class, and his journaling soon gave way to studying to try and keep ahead of the other Marines.  He made it a goal to graduate in the top five. After all of the hard work and a great many adventures, he graduated third in his class.
He hadn't thought much about God, and felt the old feeling of not really caring setting in once more.  Maybe someday he would meet God again. But he doubted it.

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