The best place to start would be the beginning. My first troop wasn't a total disaster. But, to quote another short person wearing armor on big outing for the first time:
"I can't see a thing in this helmet." - Luke Skywalker. A New Hope
I was at an event called "SuperHero Saturday" at an elementary school in San Francisco with two fellows troopers. It was back in April of 2014. All we had to do was suit up, walk out and take pictures with the cute little kids. Simple, right?
But, I couldn't see any of the cute little munchkins.
Visibility in a stormtrooper helmet is terrible at the best of times, but something was wrong with my helmet. Either a piece of padding had slipping, or I hadn't put the helmet on properly in the first place. But, I was blind, even by stormtrooper standards. However, I wasn't willing to admit I couldn't see anything. We were already heading out, and it had already taken me a long time to suit up. It was my first troop and my pride was at stake. I decided somehow I would make it work. So, I stayed very close to my two fellow troopers and kept bumping into them on either side of me. Clack! Yup. There was armor on the left of me. Clack! Ok, yes, there was armor to the right of me.
Now, I was fortunate to have my mentor, Kyle, with me on my first troop. So, at least I was smashing into someone familiar on one side. And, the trooper on the other side was very tolerant. We ended up becoming friends. "Hi!" (Armored body slam.) "I'm Diana. So nice to meet you." To compound my visibility problems, my lenses fogged up.
Huh? What now? Kyle couldn't see?!
"Uh, OK, then, I'll go with you," I said, blindly stumbling after him through my clouded, foggy lens, trying to keep up with him on the way back to the green room. Please don't let me step on any kids.
I wiped down my foggy lenses, and repositioned my helmet on my head. The second time I was able to get it on my head better. It was still bobbling about on my head, much more so than it did when I was at home. But, I was able to see enough to get through the troop.
I interacted with the kids and even played a few carnival games with the kids. The families loved it and it turned out to be an enjoyable afternoon. The San Francisco Fire Department showed up to take pictures with the kids. I was excited to see the firetruck. "Let's go take a picture with them!" Who doesn't love a firetruck? The firemen grinned when we came over.
"So glad you stopped by," one of them said, "we were about to come to you. We wanted to ask if we could get a picture with you guys?"
Uh, OK.
It was a successful first troop. Although, you can tell from the picture I have no idea what to do with my hands. Kyle, (who is the trooper on the left), gave me a long talk about properly holding my blaster. Admittedly, I was terrible at it. I couldn't see my hands well enough to correct my grip. Even with my helmet on properly, there's no vision below the chin. However, in time, I figured out learned to grip it correctly by feel. That would come much later, though, after a great deal more time behind the green lens.
So, what other lessons did I learn from my first troop?
Failures happen on the armor. All the time. Expect it. Don't stress on it. Just be prepared, and if possible, go fix it. Always carry a repair kit in your armor bin. A member of my garrison has even designed a Field Emergency Kit which can be worn on a belt by handlers and looks like a lightsaber. (They insist on calling it a FEK for short. I am not crazy about the name.) But, it contains costume repair essentials to hold us together. After 30 or so troops now, pieces tend to fall off less and I can more or less see out of the blasted helmet. Or, pretend I can. But, there would be many more troops in-between before I reached this point. And, this means I have many more stories.
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