Ceremonies and puppy teeth

Nothing new to report from Aaryk. He's been able to call me daily (and some days twice!) so that's been nice. Everywhere they go at Camp Buehring they have to go with a 'battle buddy'. So when one of the guys wants to go down to the phones or computer center (I guess they are close together) Aaryk offers to be their buddy. I have been promised pictures of the Camp eventually, and I'll definitely share them when I can!

One of the things I've been meaning to write about is a ceremony they had the night they left Fort Bragg. I wasn't there for it unfortunately, but Aaryk told me about it. It seems that sometime before they get on the plane, the Brigade had their hat changing ceremony. It's a brief and simple ceremony where they, as a group, take off their maroon berets and all put on their booney hats. This is done not because the booney hats are more functional for field work (which was my initial thought), but so that NO soldier has any marking that designates him as anything other than a basic, regular soldier. They also leave their jump wings at home (Aaryk left his in the car so I pinned them to the CD case on the visor). No point in giving the enemy clues as to who is Special Forces or Paratroopers!

When they get back they will have the reverse ceremony and all put their berets on again. It's just something that hadn't occurred to me but makes perfect sense. Watch the pictures from the war zones and you'll notice the only distinguishing things on the uniforms are rank.

My only other news at the moment is that Percy is teething. I knew that when puppy's lose their baby teeth you hardly ever find them, but I lucked into two of them! Both times we were playing 'tug' and I noticed blood on the toy. I thought maybe I had scratched his gums so I made him stop so I could look. In both cases it was just a tooth coming out and still caught in his voluminous lips! Okay, it's a little thing, but it made my day...twice!