What do pickup trucks, Santa, racoons, psycho-maniacs, doughnuts and BDU's all have in common you might ask? They all have to do with my very first Bivouac experience as a new Cadet in the Civil Air Patrol. At first I tried everything in my will to weasel my way out of going, but since my mom was a senior member (and "mom knows best"), she talked me into going!

Two other new Cadets and I had the great idea of sharing a tent together. Being that each Cadet had to take an hour shift to watch the fire and patrol the camp, we didn't get much sleep because of all the tent zippers opening and closing throughout the night. Just when one of us would try to sleep, it was time for the others' shift! Oh, and how about P.T. at 7 a.m.? Great! But after a healthy breakfast, we had a radio class, that's Romeo, Alpha, Delta, India, Oscar. Shortly afterward, we had a senior member "go missing." My team consisted of three, long-legged guys who kept leaving me behind (not intentionally, of course.) We were fortunate enough to have the ENTIRE campgrounds to ourselves because there was a Christmas Program that closed the park for the whole weekend!

Later that evening, we packed up the pickup truck with Cadets and seniors piled everywhere and drove through the Christmas Wonderland. Santa was a little surprised to hand out 18-20 candy canes to all the "kiddies." But the drive back to camp got a little "out of hand." Combining made up cadences and random creepy words, we were whispering and screaming (just because we could, no-one else was there!) Try this one: (whispering echo) senior member, senior member, doughnut, doughnut (louder echo) psycho, psycho, maniac, maniac, (screaming echo) Santa Claus, Santa Claus, Christmas, Christmas! You get the point, right? The finale of the night was a never-ending game of manhunt with the radios. It started out an enjoyable game with "proper" radio etiquette, until we started hearing orders for pizza and calls of "man down, man down" and a "missing buns" emergency after a 20 (ish) pound raccoon came right into our supplies and ran off with the sandwich buns! By the end of the night our "war paint" was melting off our faces and we were slap happy. The trophy to the winner consisted of a certain "odd shaped log" and everyone got brownie bites!

Guess what, P.T. 7 a.m. - again! But, would I trade this experience, even with the cold or as difficult as ome parts may have been? No, I'd do it again. What I've learned from this experience was how mportant it is to have perseverance. Sometimes doing the hard things, even if you don't want to, could e the biggest lessons of your life! Yes, I was tired and sore, but I made new friends, got closer to my quadron and learned a lot of things that will be helpful to me both in my personal life as well as my in my journey in CAP!