Here's what went down at Sunday drill:
Morning PT consisted of running in four man teams with a stretcher and a 250 lb. dummy for about 350 yards, once we got to point B the "MedEvac" changed landing points back to where we were originally. So back we went. Then we did log PT wich consisted of lifting a pole with a buddy until your arms fell off and then some. After we were sufficiently drenched in our own sweat, we set up an ultimate frisbee course and played that with the sergeants for over an hour. That was actually quite fun- it also showed how people instinctively give and take respect based on someone's athletic ability. After my performance in the game the other enlisted guys wanted me on their team to help them out with things and the opposite was true for the soldiers who didn't play well. I'll leave the application of that lesson for the sociologists out there.
After much welcomed showers we got down to the warrior training we prepped for the day before. We spent what was left of our morning assaulting the armory until we got to the point where most of us were visibly frustrated with how it was going. It wasn't like the movies where we just instinctively knew what we were doing- that's the work of hours and hours of training with your unit. What we were doing was amateurish at best. The sergeant wisely brought us all back into our classroom so we could talk through the issues we were having and appointed me as squad leader (SL). From there we talked through our frustrations and we got everyone on the same page as we tweaked our battle strategy. It was great experience for me and several times I had to remind myself I'm not actually a 2nd Lieutenant and this was still the sergeant's training exercise. He was gracious though and let me act like a SL would need to- even including running the operation I planned. It was reaffirming to me that this is where God wants me to be right now. I was in my element and enjoying every second of it.
On the administrative side of things I found out my best shot at OCS is going to be in March of 2012. That'll give me about 3.5 months after basic to keep getting in shape and learn what I need to. The way it will work is that I'll compete against other candidates on an Order of Merit List (OML) that takes into consideration previous service and PT scores (probably some other things as well). Based on where I rank on the OML I'll get to pick either accelerated (8 weeks, 23% pass rate) or traditional (18 months one weekend a month). My goal is to get into accelerated. If I fail out I'll just get rolled into the traditional class. I'm sure I'll talk more about that after basic, but as of now this is the plan.
One more drill weekend next month and then it's off to Fort Jackson, SC for basic!
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please feel free to leave comments. OPSEC is everyone's responsibility. As a security measure, please do not use my name or the names of my family members in your post.