Enjoying the sunshine

After the hecticness and pollution of Bangladesh, just a walk down the street in Atlanta feels like a peaceful hike in the wilderness.  Life gets that much better when we take the time to get a bit out of Atlanta for a hike.  On this one day we went to Sweetwater Creek Park with our friends who just moved here from Bangladesh as well.  As you'll see from the backdrop for the photos, we lingered at the access point to the river.

Lieutenant Merrill at your service

In conjunction with my current fellowship at CDC, I joined the US Public Health Service, one of the 7 uniformed services along with the Marines, Navy, Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and serve in the Ready Reserve of the Commissioned Corps during these two training years.  The Public Health Service (along with the last two of the others listed) is an unarmed service.  At the end of a training month for my fellowship, those of use who joined the PHS had a "pinning" ceremony to which the Surgeon General came to perform the actual pinning (act of putting our military rank pin on our lapel).

Our group of newly PHS commissioned corps officers saying our oath, led by the Surgeon General:

My moment - initially the Surgeon General ceremonially salutes me to which I respond with a salute

Then he "pins" me:

Then I, as a junior officer, formally salute him 

 In this group picture at the end, I'm standing with three other people in my EIS class who are Emory alumni - the two women from 2003 and the man from 2005.  One of the women even took a course from my dad!