Touring with the Crists: Ranger School...Day Zero

This morning I took Lou to the Ranger Training Brigade HQ. He had packed everything needed on the 5-page packing list over the last couple of weeks, took it out of the duffles, repacked and this morning had it in readiness. That was when we realized we were out of stamps. Me being the Miss Emily Post example of thank you notes for the past month, I managed somehow to deplete our entire stock. Lou, knowing that I ALWAYS have stamps didn't think to even ask that question (the "Do we have stamps?" one). So, in the end we managed to peel a 41 cent-er off one of our wedding RSVP envelopes, and coupled with 3 Tiffany lamp 1 cent-ers, he was able to take on stamped envelope to Ranger School. See, it pays to save all your unused wedding stationery. Especially the stuff you accidentally stamped thinking there were 200 invites, not 160.
This whole Ranger School seemed to come so suddenly. Up until this point, there were supposedly only 30 slots for Lou's group, and over 100 soldiers. Lou fell around slot 45 based on the scoring system. That put him starting Ranger School in June, unless they considerably enlarged this class. Then, all of sudden Thursday the colonel announced that all the guys who had passed the RPFT (Ranger Physical Fitness Test) were given slots and unless they failed miserably and got sent home as failures in life, they could run with the best in the May 16th Ranger School. This 61 day course is guaranteed to give you and those you love chronic ulcers. Its the Army way of using Rolaids and Tums sales to boost the economic recovery. It may be more productive than any recovery/stimulus plan yet to date.

Today is check in. The guys go thru Medical Records and Inprocessing to insure that they are ok to roll out Monday morning. My cryptic info sheet from the Ranger Training Brigade website states.

in-process
med screen (medical screening)
pov storage (personally owned vehicle storage)
co inprocess (?)
ln class/test (that would be land navigation class/test)
bn layout (?)

All items with (?) are equally as confusing to me as they are to you. I'm going to have to start Google-ing again.
I'm feeling pretty sick at the moment. I think things just haven't really settled yet, that he's gone. For a very long time. I keep praying that we'll have rain this week. Not a steady pour but drizzle. With the terrible heat in Georgia, many soldiers drop out because of heatstroke on the buddy team/individual run. They are going to be some tired puppies by Friday.

Each soldier is paired with a buddy during the first weeks in Ranger School. Please pray that Lou and his buddy will be well matched and a help to each other to get through the obstacles.
Last night we shaved his hair off and gave him that "I'm a 12 year old boy" look again. Cute. I planned to go to church this morning after dropping him off, but only made it halfway out of the fort before I got re-called. We had totally forgot about removing his wedding band.

Oh well, it was great to have another excuse to see him again. They will be taking away the guys' cellphones today during in-processing, but until then I'm feeling on edge, wondering if he'll be calling with a need for me to bring paperwork,equipment, or something else that's required but wasn't mentioned on the packing list.
By the way, I now know and can recite the Ranger Creed. Missing you folks back home and my best boy too. I'll update as I get more news.