Gun Shy

I was running through the woods today. The woods are approximately 14 miles from Ft. Riley - home of the Big Red One. (First Infantry Division. Google it.) Today was Artillery Day. I'm not sure that is the military term, and I KNOW it's not my term. My term for today's Ft. Riley goings-on would be Shooting Day. I don't know what kind of shooting they were training with, but the sounds were:

"whooo-BumBumBumBum...whooBumBumBumBumBumBum
...whooBumBumBum." And so on.

And I trotted on.

These sounds are different from the days I refer to as Bombing Days. Now, those can be LOUD. The very first day we lived here, it was a clear, blue, sunny sky with nary a cloud in it. But I heard thunder. I kept looking up - where was that thunder coming from?

Since then I have learned that thunder can come from the normal places (black-looking cloud formations), or Ft. Riley. Bombing Days even make our old farmhouse windows rattle.

So I continued on my slow, slow run through the woods. About 20 minutes into my path, a huge BOOM! made me jump out of my cadence. Wowee, that was no shooting - that was a bombing.

All I can say is thank goodness I live where soldiers are training for and not fighting a war. To live in the constant fear of such noises would be so sad.