Yes, I’m still alive. Buried under a mountain of books and sweaty PT clothes, but alive!
It’s hard to believe we’ve been in Charlottesville for seven weeks. Doug, the pups, and the staff of the Charlottesville Residence Inn have survived seven whole weeks of our furry little family living in a studio hotel room. (Shhhh….don’t tell any of them there are still 3 ½ weeks left!) Everybody is doing great, and we’ve actually managed to sneak in a little fun here and there.
A typical weekday here starts at 0450 – time to get up, get ready, and walk up the hill (and 88 stairs) to the School for PT. PT can be anything from a hilly five-mile run, to hundreds of pushups and shoulder taps, to a medicine-ball core workout and pull-ups. The first few weeks, I was angry about the group PT program because I thought it paled in comparison to the running & gym workouts I put myself through before I sold my soul to the Army. But, after 7 weeks, I’m in the best shape of my life (and weigh less – at age 39 -- than I did in high school). On good days, they let us out of PT by 0700, which leaves 45 minutes to walk back to the Residence Inn, shower, shove an English muffin in my mouth, and walk back up the hill (and 88 stairs) to school for morning classes, which start at 0800. (Class actually doesn’t start until 0810, but in the Army, you are required to be at least 10 minutes early for everything ….. finally, I understand Doug’s little obsession….). Classes go straight through until they let us out for lunch at 1210. Most days, I am able to go back to the hotel to have lunch with Doug & the pups – a true luxury that I will definitely miss when its gone – and then its back up the hill (and 88 stairs) for afternoon classes, which usually run until 1530 or 1630. Most nights, there’s at least an hour or two of homework, and another hour or so of reading to prepare for classes the next day. Somewhere in there, there’s dinner (I could have my own Food Network show: “Creative & Healthy Microwave Meals in a Hotel Room”), puppy kisses, and a little bit of Doug time. By Friday I’m definitely ready to get off the hamster wheel and take a break!
We have even managed to have some fun here on weekends. Other than the ridiculous southern heat & humidity, Charlottesville is a beautiful area. We’ve been able to ride together almost every weekend on some great trails that remind us a lot of New Hampshire (rooty, rocky, hilly, and mildly dangerous!). There’s also a great little trail system right behind the hotel that circles the city – we usually just run on that, or bring the pups swimming in one of the many stream crossings. And then, of course, there’s lots of local breweries to discovery. We found South Street Brewery right away, and then a few weekends ago ventured out to the mountains for a beer & music festival at Devil’s Backbone Brewing (love that name!). We’ve got 3 weeks left here and 2 more beer festivals (that I know of) on our calendar. Can’t complain that it’s been all work and no play!
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| Devil's Backbone Beer & Music Festival |
As for the academics, it’s much more intense than I thought it would be. Some if that is my fault – I still haven’t been able to stifle my inner perfectionist. Each subject of instruction ends with an exam, which, of course, my inner perfectionist insists I study way too much for (and then beats me up for days when I miss one or two questions). The instructors all use the phrase “drinking water through a fire hose” when they describe the style of learning/instruction at TJAGLCS, and I completely agree. They’ve got to teach us – or at least expose us to – a LOT of information in only ten and a half weeks. The instructors are also trying to teach to such a diverse group of students. A few of us have been practicing for a long time, but the vast majority of students are only a few months out of law school and have never held a legal job in their lives. There’s really no other way but to open up the fire hose and hope we absorb some of it.
The first two weeks we focused on Administrative Law. This is kind of the catch-all of all law in the Army that doesn’t fit into one of the other categories. For example, there’s a very specific administrative discipline system for Soldiers who screw up, but stop short of committing a crime. At each stage, it’s the Judge Advocate’s (JA) job to advise the Commander about what punishments are allowed and ensure the Soldier gets due process. There was also a lot of instruction on the Army’s ratcheted-up version of professional responsibility rules, and the very dense ethics rules for the military (never in ten years of private practice did I have to think twice about a client wanting to buy me a beer …. now I question how much it cost, whether the buyer outranks me, whether the buyer has bought me a beer in the past 12 months…yada yada yada).
Then it was on to two and a half very long weeks of Criminal Law. The military has its own criminal code – called the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) – and they prosecute their own crimes independent of the state/federal system. Most of the UCMJ crimes are similar to state crimes, but many have a life of their own (only the military could take a relatively simple crime and turn it into an 8-way flow chart that only makes sense on a PowerPoint slide). After suffering through a week in class on criminal law, and an extremely difficult exam, it was time to move on to the Advocacy Week portion of criminal law. I have to give kudos to the faculty for pulling this together. We were each given identical case files, in which two male soldiers were accused of raping a younger female soldier in the barracks. Each student had an opportunity to play the role of either defense counsel or trial counsel (prosecutor) for the mock guilty plea of one of the men, and defense counsel or trial counsel for the mock Court Martial (trial) of the other man. Both the students and the faculty really got into this exercise, bringing in evidence/props, preparing “witnesses”, drafting pre-trial motions, etc. This was fun for me – especially knowing that nothing was really at stake (no client was going to lose $4 million) – so I could, and did, have some fun with it. I doubt my opponent in the mock trial has forgiven me yet for all those hearsay objections – (sorry buddy, but when you’ve been doing this as long as I have, it just kinda happens…)
Finally the mock trials were done and we moved on to Contract & Fiscal Law. I know, I rolled my eyes and groaned too …. but it actually turned out to be the best two weeks I’ve had, probably since becoming a lawyer. I absolutely loved this stuff. Do you have any idea how hard it is to buy a paperclip in the federal government?? Now add to that the complexities of a war (e.g., building a latrine in Afghanistan with contracted labor, buying & selling military equipment or ammunition, supplying bandages for the docs who give humanitarian aid in places like post-earthquake Haiti, and the rewards and incentives we pay to keep the locals “on our side” downrange). One of my classmates summed it up the last day of class when he said: “if I got deployed tomorrow, I feel confident I could stumble my way through a rape prosecution, but I’m absolutely terrified to buy a box of staples!”. I wholeheartedly agree! Amazingly complex – but also very real. I can hardly believe I’m saying this out loud, but I really want to learn more about fiscal & contract law. The day after the exam, I sought out one of the faculty to get advice on how to attend advanced fiscal & contract law classes at TJAGLCS. I think that officially makes me the biggest dork in the class.
Now, we’re slugging through the Client Services block of instruction. Every Army installation has a “Legal Assistance Office” which is staffed with young military lawyers who provide free legal advice to Soldiers, Families and retirees on general legal issues including family law, consumer law, estate planning, tax, and SCRA/USERRA issues. Most JA’s spend at least six months staffing the Legal Assistance Office as kind of a “right of passage”. It’s definitely not the sexy job of being a prosecutor or advising commanders on operational law. But in my mind (kind of like the Contract & Fiscal Law stuff) it’s the real Army. The Legal Assistance Office helps Soldiers and their families with the most basic stuff – stuff that is probably the most important thing in the world to them at that very moment. If I get to help one Soldier who lost custody of her kids because she was deployed, I’m all over it. (I just have to remind myself of that the next week while I’m struggling to stay awake during class #6 on Estate Planning. Ugh.)
Its hard to believe there are only three weeks left before graduation. The only topic left to cover is Operational Law (e.g., rules of engagement, international laws and treaties, etc.) and I’m looking forward to that. Graduation is on 29 Sep and then it’s off to Ft. Benning for the Direct Commissioned Officer Course (DCC). More on that in the next post.
And here are a few more pictures for those of you who still can't believe I'm actually in the Army!
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| Wearing my ACU's |
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| Wearing the ASU (yeah, I know, my hair looks funny - remind me not to cut it myself next time!) |
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| Exiting the Gas Chamber at Ft. Lee |
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| Capturing the cardboard terrorists! |
