Two weeks of classroom instruction, a week long field exercise, and a final week of sitting on my ass. The warrior leader course (a.k.a. sergeant school) is now over, and yes readers, I am now a warrior leader. I even have an official looking diploma.
The atmosphere at the graduation ceremony was one of jubilation and glee. "Hell" was over and we were finally allowed to return to our respective homes and booze things up with our respective drinks of choice. After the ceremony I hopped into a van with a few other Soldiers of the 513th, grabbed lunch, and set sail for Fort Gordon. My belly was full and my eye lids were heavy. I unbuckled my seat belt, laid down in my seat and promptly fell asleep.
The crash was mostly subconscious for me. I was dreamily flung forward into the back of the seat in front of me, creating a hasty mold of my sleeping form in the gray material, before falling in a heap on the van floor. I wasn't entirely awake at this point, but the screams from the front seats grabbed my attention. I opened my eyes and then the situation finally became very real. At first I wasn't sure of, well, a lot of things. Was the van upside down, was I dead, was I upside down, was I paralyzed, am I still in WLC? Fortunately, I was uninjured and sat up ready to react to the possible destruction in front of me.
After an initial "freak out" session we discovered that everyone was alive and it appeared that the only injuries were a busted lip and a sprained ankle. We Soldiers exited the van and took note of the results of the event from the side of the interstate. It appeared that we had rear ended a large truck while changing lanes in preparation for our exit from I-285 to I-20. The front of the van was accordioned back to the front of the frame and the windshield was shattered. I was informed that we had struck the truck while we were traveling at approximately 60 miles per hour. The van was totalled.
We stood in the cold staring at the destruction that now blocked two lanes of traffic waiting for emergency personnel to arrive. When they did they determined that I, for one, was free of injury, but the sprained ankle would have to be transported to the hospital for further evaluation.
The adrenaline had finally subsided and I could now feel the cold of the air seeping into my skin. As we prepared to leave the scene in various other vehicles I took a moment took look into the wondering eyes of motorist goose necking past us in the open lane of traffic. I recalled multiple occasions where I had been seated in a safe and secure vehicle my eyes glued to a traffic accident and its victims.
How did I feel to be on the receiving end of all the stares?
Lucky.
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