My first mission during my vacation and a new student at school

This summer I got to have my first mission in the army. I didn't go to any contry, it wasn't a dagerous mission I actually stayed in Paris the whole time. I prepared the 14the of July. For those who do not know what it is, let's have a little History lesson. During the French Revolution the 14th of July 1789 the people in Paris went to La Bastille which at the time a prison to obtain guns and fight against the Monarchy. Since that day, every year in France we celebrate La prise de la Bastille which is a bit like the 4th of July for you in the United States.
During that celebration, there is a huge military parade where all the military vehicules and hundred if soldiers walk along the Champs Elysées in front of the president. This parade is made to show the people "the army". Show them our material and prestige. I didn't get to walk along the Champs Elysées but I got to prepare the rest. It takes about 2 weeks of intense work. If you are ever in Paris during the 14th of July you HAVE GOT TO see it because it's so impressive.
Our main goal during this mission is taking care of all the vehicules, taking them from their military base and then bring them to one military base which was espacially made for the soldiers and the vehicules to rehearse. They do it for about a week. It's not as easy as it seems to be.
Then after they rehearsal we have to take them to the Champs Elysées. It's quite a bog job, first we have to make sure the tanks (chars Leclerc) which are the biggest tank we have in the French army and many other kinds of vehicules can drive on all the roads. It's pretty complicated there are some roads and avenues the tanks are simply too be to take them. And of course we have to make sure that they don't get lost in Paris. We also have to assure the civils's security. Some drivenrs don't really care about the military convoy and just keep on going which is really dangerous because tanks are really big and accidents easily happen. Fortunately, even with some not very friendly and very citizen decided that they had to right to cross a street in the middle of dozens of tanks, the mission went good and nothing bad happened.
For a few days I worked in the base where there is the rehearsal and I saw about 50 times the parade. It was nice and the drivers in the tank were nice to me. It was pretty hot and it was kind of annoying. Seeing the parade 50 times just waiting on the road to make sure no civil vehicules come and it was annoying for the drivers as well. So we tried to joke around when we had time, I was the only girl on my patrol so guys were always trying to get my attention. It was funny... I understand them there had to stay all day long sitting and driving slowly around a landing strip. It's very hot in a tank! I got to cross Paris in a tank, it was just amazing! And just so hot! It was great. People seemed so happy and impressed to see us. Children were screaming of happiness. It is my best memory of my entire military experience so far.
I don't know if you can see it on the pictures but the tanks are really big. With my army pals were were making some road signs to show the direction to the drivers who were drinving the tanks. I spent most of my time the car at transmission as you can see on one of the pictures. My duty was keepng the link with the other patrol, knowing were they were in case of an accident and also to simply organize the whole thing.
I love transmissions, it looks alot like in war movies where they speak with some sort of code. It sounds cool and complicated when you do it but it's not that hard. I just think it's fun...
Now we are back to school as Seniors for the most part of us and for a few they repeat their Junior year. We also have a new student in our class who will be going to D.C. When I showed her the pictre of me in the military car with another army pal working, she thought I was a man and said she actually found me cute...