Helicopter Apology Accepted

A few weeks ago I got a random e-mail asking if I, as a new JAG selectee, would like to be a special guest of the Navy for the opening of Fleet Week in NYC. Obviously the answer was yes. Ben was invited too, and we had the brilliant idea to leave DC at 10PM on an overnight bus and then come back the next evening so that we wouldn't have to worry about lodging.

Our bus broke down at 1AM in the middle of nowhere so we thought we would miss our 5AM arrival time, but a new bus was sent in a shockingly quick time and we arrived at our meeting point, Pier 6, at 4:30. 

And there was a beautiful sunrise.

Oh, and Pier 6 isn't a port for ships. It's a heliport. 

Because the Navy has helicopters too.

Nicer picture of the sunrise and a helicopter arriving taken by one of my fellow JAG selects.

There were five of us there in the JAG student program. One had already gone through ODS AND had a similar experience being medically disqualified multiple times so it was great to be able to bond over shared frustrations.

But then for some reason I completely forgot about the time it took to get into JAG.

We were strapped in, so they left the door open so that we would have a nice view and also be terrified.

After an amazing thirty minutes or so, we saw our ship.

Just for fun, the helicopter took us right next to the ship and then got within five feet of the water to scare us. 

It was a very smooth landing.

The JAG crew.

After a tour around the ship by a couple of current JAG Officers and some coffee, we went up to watch the crew man the rails for the ride into the harbor. 

They all did this for three hours. It was very impressive.

Any picture that is of good quality- I did not take that picture.

There were excellent views the entire time.

And in the middle of the trip, Adam Baldwin, one of the actual VIPs and an actor who was in one of my favorite shows, came over to introduce himself and thank us all for our future service as JAGs. So, pretty much the best day ever.

No, Jayne Cobb, thank YOU.

When we pulled up to port there was a Navy band playing traditional Sousa tunes and everything continued to be awesome. We said goodbye to our wonderful JAG hosts and most of us went as a group to a hamburger place. Afterwards, Ben and I wandered around the city and went to the library. We got on our bus around six and were back in DC by eleven. Then we slept forever because we had been awake for forty hours.

Today I did some bar study and then Ben and I went to a thing called Trapped in a Room with a Zombie, which is a group-adventure-puzzle-game in which twelve strangers are trapped in a room with a zombie and must solve puzzles in order to find a key to the room. According to their statistics, 22% of groups make it out alive. We were all out within 37 minutes and set a new national record for fastest time. The previous DC record was 41 minutes. I didn't have much to do with it, but I learned that Ben is crazy good at solving puzzles. 

Now time for more bar study! 

Ensign Johnson, J.D.

As of today I am technically a law school graduate and also technically an Ensign in the United States Navy. I say "technically" because I still have to pass the bar exam for my law school graduation to be worth anything and because I am in the most inactive of the inactive reserves until I go to Officer Development School in November. It just doesn't feel like all that much has changed. I know it has, of course, and I have pictures to prove it.

See? Ben and I took a selfie at graduation.

And I got a picture with the person who had to suffer through 

law school as much or more than I did. Very important.

My commissioning ceremony happened on Friday, and the weather forecast was bleak. Monsoon bleak. Flash flooding bleak. 100% chance of thunderstorm during the time of the ceremony bleak. Good thing this has been the year of ignoring when people say there is a 100% chance of anything.

Because it turned out very nice and we were the only people there.

I chose the Jefferson Memorial because of my connection to Jefferson through William and Mary and Woodberry, and also because there are some great legal quotes inscribed on the walls, and also because it is one of the prettier memorial locations. My original idea was to commission next to the Apollo 11 command module in the Air and Space Museum, but that had absolutely no connection to either me or to the Navy or to law and so I thought better of it. It would have been cool, but less meaningful.

Kelsey arranged for a co-worker of hers to come and take some pictures of the ceremony.

She got some especially good pictures of us posing for other pictures.

It was a bit windy.

Good shot of TJ's shadow looming in the background as Papa Buck has me recite the oath.

As far as I can tell, this is technically the moment that I legally became an officer.

The whole group (minus Papa Buck who was in the bathroom)

All in all, a very special weekend with perfect weather and excellent family time. Thank you to everyone who helped get me here- you know who you are. 

The End of an Era

Law school ended, not with a bang, but with an eight hour take-home exam finished yesterday around 3PM. I spent my final minutes officially in "law school" writing about due process, which I suppose is fitting. At some points during the exam it was difficult to keep going- not because the subject was difficult or because I didn't want to end my law school experience- but because I was taking the class pass/fail and and I kept thinking "well I've certainly PASSED by now."

So that's that. That was a fast three years. I'm sure it will seem like an equally long amount of time between now and my bar exam. My bar exam prep company helpfully emailed me just minutes after I had finished my final exam to let me know that "directed self-study mode" was now active. Super.

This week is all a wind-down. Lots of potlucks and dinners and receptions and exit-counseling and such. Next Friday I will be commissioning as a Navy JAG (though I won't actually go to officer school until November because of how the bar result release schedule works). I'm really looking forward to that, because I still don't feel like that whole thing is real and perhaps actually commissioning will help. I didn't know that this would be an option, but apparently active officer OR any officer in any branch of service who has retired with more than 20 years of service is able to commission me, and so I'm very excited that Papa Buck has agreed to give me the oath.

I imagine that at some point, perhaps after I finish the bar, which most certainly qualifies as being part of the buzz saw, I will start a new blog and consider this one completed.

All in all, law school- not that hard in retrospect and without any prospect of having to do it again.