GI Jane

I've started a new job, still in health, where I will be sent to fragile States to look at the health aspects of reconstruction and stabilization efforts. And since these countries are not the safest ones out there, I have to take a Security class.

Here's what's on the docket for the class:

- Personnel recovery (eg: getting injured personnel from the field into helicopters)
- Knowledge of weapons of mass destruction
- Tactical communication and use of satellite phones
- Surveillance detection (eg: determining when someone's following you)
- Basic land navigation (eg: walking from an unknown forest to a base camp using a map and a compas)
- Counterthreat driving (eg: when to go through a check point and when to retreat, driving at high speeds, driving over and around obstacles)
- Convoy Immediate Action Drills
- Medical/first aid skills
- Survival skills (eg: how to start a fire using a knife or a flint)

This is a three week course and I've already gotten my personal gear (cargo pants, boots, woolen socks, quick-dry shirts) and should be getting a backpack with more survival gear in the second week of the class.

Should be fun, I can't wait!