Today is a perfect example of how incredibly backwards things can get at guard drill. For three months they've been riding us about completing this online "self-aid and buddy care" course. It is this relatively useful course that asks you questions like
"You have been hit by an IED. Your wingman has been thrown from the HMMVW. You are under fire. You suspect your wingman has a neck injury. What is the best way to remove your wingman from the line of fire?"

While this is actually one of the better courses they make us do online, computer based training is useless. Our computers move at the speed of "backwards". This is partly because our network is always slammed on a training weekend, and partly because our computers are from my year of birth, 1983. We've been really busy with other stuff, so I put it off until the last minute. It takes nearly two full hours to complete, and that's if you cheat by not reading any of the slides and then get someone who has already done it to tell you all the answers for the "test" part of the course.

Did I mention computer based training is useless?

It had to be completed by the end of this guard drill. They emphasized this. They re-emphasized this. Then they told us we would be executed by a firing squad if we did not finish it by 2 p.m. this afternoon. I started it right after lunch, giving myself a comfy two hour cushion to get it done before drill was over. I spent almost two hours waiting for pages to load, clicking on the computer screen through my peripheral vision, while reading the Wisconsin State Journal daybreak section. Then I gathered a "board of advisors" (ie the people who are real life nurses, people who have already taken the exam, etc) to sprint through the test. I passed, by the skin of my [our] teeth.

Then I went to print the "certificate of achievement". Unbeknownst to me, the "new" [read: crappy, old] computer I was working on did not have the appropriate printer loaded. THIS is a crisis. If you do not print your certificate of achievement, you did not do the training, regardless of how many times you actually accomplished the training. Computers also freeze all the time, even if you print the screen, they won't accept it because it's not the "appropriate" certificate. Pretty much the most frustrating thing in the world. I think my record is taking the explosive safety course six times because the screen froze every time I passed the exam.

Finally, someone got off a computer with a functioning printer and luckily, somehow, miraculously, my progress was saved in my profile. Hooray! Print! Print! Done! I handed in my certificate after an agonizing two hours of mindless clicking, blatant cheating, and a malfunctioning computer. I handed it in as my supervisor called my name for end-of-the-day roll call. Again, skin of my teeth.

Not 20 seconds after I handed in my certificate of completion, my supervisor announces that anyone who did not complete Self-Aid & Buddy Care [aka all the slackers] will receive 4 comp hours of guard pay if they do it outside of drill.

So let me get this straight. I could have done it at home, on a functioning computer, in 1/3 of the time, AND made $100, ALL while not having to show up for 1/2 a day on a drill weekend?

You suck. I'm not kidding. I hate you.