4.26.10

Hey All,

Taste the colors of the rainbow... or maybe just the hot peppers from the OC spray (pepper spray). Cadet Hot Tamale had quite a colorful week with many activities and victories.

Blue, White and Black signifies his uniform worn for his range qualifications. Ryan passed both pistol and shotgun qualifications last week. This uniform was also worn on Saturday as the Cadets did a service project at a local orphanage. They cleared land, pulled weeds, painted and did general clean up on the premises. The children were very happy to have the improvements and were sad to see them go.

Tan,Blue and Green marks the exciting occasion of putting on his first Tan uniform! Tan with Blue stripes is the actual uniform and Green is the dress jacket. I can imagine 120 neutrally-colored peacocks strutting around the gym - that is, of course, before the staff officers came in and took them down a few notches. The cadets were measured several weeks ago and this was their initial uniform try-on with their duty belt. Ryan's was too big already and will need to be altered, nevertheless, a fun experience.

In the Red spectrum or it may even be called Magenta is the color of the skin following the OC spray. A direct quote from the cadet shortly after, via text, "Coming off of the effects of the OC spray. Imagine habanero sauce in your eyes and on your face. It sucked, but I owned that trash". I think that pretty much sums it up. Surprisingly, about 1% of people are not affected by the spray. One cadet was so lucky and volunteered for a second round to see if the outcome was different - he was rejected. After the cadets were sprayed they had to do 20 push-ups before they could go to the water hose for recovery. By the end of the day Ryan was fine, however some of the cadet's eyes were still watering at 5:00 pm.

Black as night and Blue with cold were the conditions while learning how to pull over and initially approach a vehicle. It was pouring rain, but law enforcement must go on. This was one of their first and most basic scenarios to learn. There are many more and more complicated, life-like scenarios yet to come.

Green...the color of the Nasties faces as they are envious of the senior cadets. It is hard to fathom as a new cadet that someday you will be able to walk around with your head held high, that you too will be able to have a gun on your hip and even harder to believe that one day the Staff Officers will show you some respect!

And finally Orange, Black and Tan are the colors of the San Francisco Giants tattoo sleeve I bought for Ryan - just for fun. Anything to represent! Go Giants!!

Well, it's not exactly our pot of gold, but Ryan may be getting his "Dream Sheet" this week. This will tell us which cities have openings for new officers and will give us an idea of where we may be moving to. When he receives this sheet, he is supposed to rank the locations to give them an idea of where we would like to go. This may or may not play a role in his actual assignment as there are a lot more factors involved. Hopefully, I will atleast have that to report on next week!

Week 16 is done and week 17 is but 4 days long!

Love,

Amy