I'll probably start to taper off here in the level of detail as we go through Phase II and I'll hit the highlights over the course of the next year. By now we're starting to know what to expect on a monthly basis and the class is really coming together. Class 55 is a year ahead of us and just finished Phase II. Going into the weekend they had a class of 15. Six were pulled and said they had two choices- recycle with 56 or drop the course as the instructors deemed them unready to progress to Phase III. That's a tough pill to swallow as they've now spent over 16 months in the program, only to have to start over in Phase II. We don't know the exact circumstances of why those six didn't make it but it was a sobering weekend that made us all a little nervous. Two look like they may rejoin our class but no final decisions have been made. As of now Class 56 has 38 candidates.
We expected Phase II to start with a bang- the instructors telling us how sorry we are, how we'll never make it, how we forgot everything from Phase I, and on and on. But that didn't happen. Our student leadership was on the ball all weekend and we actually impressed the cadre. That's not to say we were perfect- we spent plenty of time in the dirt but overall we did a solid job. If we can keep it up for a few more months we'll have a good shot at making it to intermediate phase where supposedly the cadre take some pressure off. I'm not holding my breath.
We spent a lot of time in the classroom this drill. Most of it was purely death by powerpoint- Army Ethics, Army Writing, Army Leadership, Effective Listening, etc. All part of learning to be an officer but everyone (including the instructors) would rather be in the field.
We had a short religous service on Sunday morning that was led by an OC- it was the first time we'd done that in Texas and I was glad the Cadre gave us time for it.
We talked briefly about graduation- we need to sart collecting dues for the graduation ball, our company guidon, and class shirts in the magnitude of tens of thousands of dollars. Apparently the ball is quite the expensive ordeal. It seems like a long way off at this point but hopefully the next year goes by quickly.
