The past two days at work have been uncommon. Tuesday I spent the entire day at the Russell Rotunda for what ended up only being two hits. The first hit took place at 9:05am, w/ Sen. K. Bailey Hutchison and the last hit at 9:00pm, w/ Sen. Joe Lieberman. One hit was canceled that was supposed to be at 1:45pm and another was canceled because of an audio issue, and Sen. Cornyn couldn't wait. Always stressful when things don't work like they should... luckily we were not to blame. Then Wednesday I spent another full day at Russell! A 9:00am Lindsay Graham to start off with and a 4:35pm Sen. Cornyn, which didn't happen again b/c he was late, to finish the day. Lucky for Bob and I there was Thursday.
Thursday was much like the other two days except we were stationed at the Cannon Rotunda, the House side, all day. Also different about the House side is that there is better food and on that particular day there were free drinks and an expo going on in the Caucus Room. Free sodas! Too bad I had just given up sodas that week. Doesn't it always seem to work that way. They did have bottled water and coffee too, however, and I made good use of that. The expo was also pretty cool. It was a room full of expensive toys. They had the technology that they used in "Monster House" where you have a bunch of balls stuck to you and it records your movement... I got to try on a glove. They also had Virtual Reality war games with real looking guns. I watch two girls playing it and it was pretty funny. They had little clue of the real world, they were turning and looking at nothing anyone could see but them and they'd point their guns and shoot at the crowd. Well later that day as we were stationed around the Rotunda some one approached us as they often do, and asked, "What's going on?" People always think something big is going on because crews are set up. So I told him that this is pretty standard and I mentioned that there was something going on in the caucus room that was pretty cool. He said that he was with the expo and we got to talking.
Now this guy is why I decided to post something today. I came to find out that he served in the Vietnam war and recieved three Purple Hearts, a Silver Star and some other awards. He told me some pretty amazing stories. For instance that while on a mission w/ the Green Berea he was hurt so bad they thought he was dead and he woke up in a body bag. The Army told his family that he was dead and it wasn't till seven months later that he was able to contact them through a state representative. He said that he tried calling his family, parents and wife, on his own collect, but they'd never pick up because they thought it was harassment from the anti war protesters. Crazy! Of the same event he said that a few years ago his foot started hurting and upon getting an x-ray it turned out that a AK-47 bullet was lodged in his foot and had worn away at his bone. Something like 37 years later he found another bullet in him. After "dying" in the army he got out of the military but couldn't get a job so he joined the Air force and became a pilot. Man did I enjoy those stories and continually thought... I WISH I HAD MY CAMERA! That's a thought that often goes through my head, but people are not as comfortable in front of a camera and it's a lot to carry around. I've got to figure that out.
