BCT- The Last Days

Well even though training is over, it doesn’t mean the DS’s control our lives any less. We’re still waking up at 0500 and doing PT, then we spend the rest of the day cleaning, getting smoked, cleaning, eating chow… you get the idea. The day after the ruck march we got our first decent meal at the DFAC- I got to eat BBQ ribs, warm dinner rolls, a loaded baked potato, an ice cream sundae and the best piece of German chocolate cake I’ve had in 10 weeks. Then we got smoked. Should’ve seen that one coming…

The next night we got about 3 hours of sleep because the DS on night duty kept us up past 0130 cleaning our rifles and then we got to wake up at 0445. Outstanding. The other days are more or less a blur, more of the same- late nights cleaning everything from our bays, to our gear, and more weapons cleaning. We had an inspection where we laid out all our gear, broke down our weapons and our Sergeant Major came by to inspect it. We got all dressed up in our Class B ASU uniforms and the inspection really wasn’t as bad as the DS’s made us believe it would be.

I guess I haven’t commented on being Student First Sergeant yet. It’s a lot of extra responsibility without any benefits (except I get to pick which MRE I get when we eat MRE’s). I’m learning a lot about what it takes to manage a group of 160 soldiers- its definitely not anything I’ve had similar experience with before. I think I’m the only student leader in the company that hasn’t been fired yet- most days I wish they’d just do it so I don’t have to be the center of attention for the DS’s. It will earn me an Army Achievement Medal when this is all over, so I guess it’s worth it.

We got to make a phone call home to tell our families that we graduated, but for some reason my wife’s phone number wasn’t working each time I got to try so that was pretty frustrating, but the night before family night we got our personal bags and cell phones back so hopefully I’ll have better luck then. Just a few more days and I’ll be out of here!