"Fly Like An Eagle"
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A few years ago I had the privilege of accompanying my husband to Jrotc Summer Camp. He is a SAI for the ROTC and was teaching in a small town in KY. Thus the summer camp was held at Ft.Knox, KY. I went as a chaperone for some of the girl cadets and thought it would be fun. We had a great time and I ended up doing a few things I thought I would never do; much less live to tell about it. One of the things I was able to do was join with the girls in the raft races on a small lake there. You of course were timed and you had to push your raft out into the water before entering the craft. So of course you are wet, muddy and out of breath and now you got to paddle. Hopefully to win. I honestly don't remember who won all the events that day, but I well remember the next day.

This was to be the day that the cadets were to rappel from a 15 ft. wall, a 75 ft. wall and repel off the skids of a fake helicopter. I went out to the area with them and as they were being lined up to get instructions from one of the Army instructors who was there to coordinate the events looked at me and said " Mam, would you like to try it?" Oh yeah sure why not.............NOT. I said "no thank you" and went on my way. About 10 minutes later a couple of the female cadets came to me crying, they were afraid to repel off the towers. I was giving them a big talk and " You can do it!!" when one of them said ( Amanda I believe) "I'll only do it if Mrs. Martin will too". Oh yeah sure right, hold your breath darling girl.

I will let the pictures below speak for the rest. There is one other thing I have to tell you; when we reached the top of the towers and you realize the only way down is by will and rope; you suddenly tell yourself....."you are in big trouble sister". On top of the tower are several young Army men who are there to help you over your fear and assist you in starting down. Well........I happen to get paired with the cutest thing I had seen since I was 16. He kept telling me, "Mam there's nothing to be afraid of, I won't let anything happen to you I promise". OHHHH those eyes. He then really freaked me when he got very close and said " Just look in my eyes, don't take your eyes off mine", as he's backing me up toward the never ending great wall of hysteria. But...looking in his eyes did help, because fear of falling suddenly wasn't at the top of my list of worries. More like my husband seeing me swoon over this young God. They had told us that the procedure is to walk off backwards off the tower. Plant your feet and jump up and down twice, they then would say "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE?" And the cadets shouted back "AIRBORNE". Well when it came my time and my feet planted on the wall and he shouted ( pretty eyes) "WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE?". I couldn't help it, I knew my husband was right there at the bottom watching me and listening, so I shouted back at Mr. IDOL "DIVORCED DIVORCED". My husband fell in the sand laughing as well as the young man. So that was my adventure at summer camp and things would have been wonderful except for one small detail. If I could have just got him to stop calling me "MAM".