11 August 2007: So what was the ultimatum?

Are you ready for the sound of a broken record? Here it comes. The elusive command visit is back on. Yeah, I know… It was cancelled twice at the last minute. Well it’s back on and will take place this coming week. At first I figured this would be as easy as simply updating my command briefing. Wrong! This is the Army and nothing can be that easy. Instead, the command group down in Kuwait had e-mailed us an example of the format they required for all briefing slides. The instructions were that we were to ensure that our slides met the standard. The irony of this is that this “required” format was never provided to us for the previous visits (the ones that cancelled). To make matters worse, the formatted slide provided couldn’t be imported into the slide master. As a result, I had to completely redo my entire presentation. Whereas it would have take all of ten minutes to update my older presentation, recreating a whole new briefing took me most of the morning. The Army is fixated on the use of Powerpoint. Most staff officers are jokingly referred to as “Powerpoint Rangers”. It’s actually a true description. I’ve successfully avoided that label up to now. That doesn’t mean I haven’t been pinned with slide requirements. After my morning of laborious slide production I am proud to say that my briefing now meets the standard format (at least for our command).

Since it was Saturday and we weren’t on mission the team took the afternoon off. I suggested we all go see the 1700 movie. It just so happened that the movie was “The Bourne Ultimatum.” Most of the team readily agreed so we made it a plan. Even though we went to the theater well over an hour before the movie we still had to wait outside in line. Nobody would be allowed in until the 1400 movie let out and everyone in attendance had departed. That way people can’t go to the early movie to get premium seats for the next movie (every movie is different – the 1400 showing was “Mr. Brooks”). It wasn’t until about 1620 that the doors opened. We streamed into the theater bathed in sweat. I’ve never seen the theater as full as it was for this movie. By the time the lights went down it was standing room only. Joes were even sitting on the aisle steps. I didn’t realize that Jason Bourne was that popular. I’ve seen the first two in the series and they were both entertaining. The third movie was worth the wait. We all enjoyed the action. I won’t give anything away. I did leave with a question though. What was Jason Bourne’s ultimatum?

After the movie we all went our separate ways for the weekend. We’ll convene again on Monday morning. I made a phone call home, wrote a few e-mails, and loaded more songs on iTunes. I can’t download songs here but I do exchange music with my team. I guess I’ve added a couple more gigs since I deployed.

We are ecstatic for the return of football season.