Hello all, just checking in after a busy week.  Week three was much like week two: lots of classes, some light PT, and some hearty meals.  Monday was a four mile run with the Movement Center of Excellence (about a thousand of us, the center includes OCS, infantry and armor basic leadership courses, and the NCO academy); it was about as slow as you would expect a run with a thousand people would be, but it was fun jogging around the base and calling cadence with the company. Friday morning we had our second foot march, a six mile ruck march at a 17:20 pace; I put my ballistic plates in my ruck to add a little bit of weight (about 55-60lbs on my back altogether) and to get myself ready for some of the harder ruck marches.  I almost immediately regretted this, of course, but a little extra soreness for a few days is worth the experience and strength that I've gained in the process.  For instance, I learned that I don't know how to wear a ruck very well and that I need to stretch before the next march!
After our morning runs/marches/PT we have been having classes, history in the morning and miscellaneous classes in the afternoon (personnel management/supply/intelligence order plans). History class is pretty intense; going through every major military engagement that the United States has taken part in, about a college semester worth of information, in two weeks is pretty tough. Luckily we're given plenty of time to study in our free time and being part of a study group helps too.  While the information in the other classes we take either aren't testable or the tests are meant to be easy, but history the class is meant to be rough and plenty of people are recycled when they end up failing it.
Today was a blast: we did the Leaders Reaction Course (this video shows a few of the obstacles) which tests our ability to plan, pass on information, and lead/supervise, or what the Army calls Troop Leading Procedures.  We did the obstacles by squad with each obstacle being lead by a different member of the squad. I was nervous going in because we were being graded on our leadership ability, and anything we get graded on here either hurts or helps us on the Order of Merit List. Anything that goes towards your OML here is a pretty big deal because how well you do on the OML decides the order in which you can choose your job since there are only a small number of spots available for the more desirable jobs (For example, there are 80 active duty members in my company and there will probably only be 4-6 spots for Military Intelligence, a highly desired branch). Luckily I ended up doing very well on my obstacle, mainly because it was one of the easier ones and my squad is extremely high speed, but regardless it was still fun to do well. Even better, I learned some more about my leadership: I recognized that I may not be the greatest puzzle solver on the spot, but I am great at delegating, listening, and motivating, and acting. OCS is all about recognizing your strengths and weaknesses as a leader so it's great to know what I need to work on!
Miss all of you, hope your weekends are going great, have a wonderful Fathers Day tomorrow!

A few more pictures!

I sleep on top of my covers because of the heat so why waste time making the bed every morning?

 Now that's a good looking bed!

 100 MPH tape isn't just for lazy bed makers, it's also great for arts and crafts! Pen and pencil holder, makeshift wallet, a couple of weather proof pouches for notes and other materials I need to carry around.

“I choose a lazy person to do a hard job. Because a lazy person will find an easy way to do it.” - Bill Gates

 

 

 And here are a few lovely photos I've taken.  One place I want to go and one thing I want to eat!

               

 The view outside my barracks' door

 My closet

 My company (you can see the airborne school jump towers in the background)

 Receiving a medal from Command Sergeant Major at my basic graduation

 My beautiful mother, a beret, and a cowboy hat

 My ascot!

My body armor

Airborne school barracks and jump towers, just down the road.

This is a strange place.  We’re treated like adults, we’re given free time, the cadre is carte blanche when it comes to their standards.  A few weeks ago I would have never expected these freedoms; they would have seemed like traps set up by drill sergeants to get us to fail (and failure leads to smokings).  The crazy thing is, we haven’t even been smoked yet, so it’s beginning to not feel like a trap! Expectations are high, and as long as you can handle those expectations and not flaunt your misdeeds the cadre leave us to study and train by ourselves.  As they say, this is a gentleman's course, and as long as we act like future Army officers we’ll be treated as such.  It’s an odd transition but I’m getting use to it! I still expect Drill Sergeant Tuttle to creep out of the shadows and flip my bed for my covers not being tight enough, and while this hasn’t happened yet, I’ll keep one eye open.

I’m expecting an easy Saturday today. We started out the day with some circuit training lead by OC Winnenberg, a short badass crossfitting chick, one of the two females in the company looking to branch infantry (and in doing so would become one of the first female infantry officers to come out of OCS).  Since I haven’t had any real PT since a week before basic ended so my legs are absolutely shot!  For breakfast I stuffed my face with relatively healthy snacks. So far today we’ve had a class on Troop Leading Procedures, which I expect to continue until lunch, and then after lunch we’ll probably have more classes until dinner. I’m excited for an easy Sunday tomorrow where I’m spending the majority of the day shaking myself to stay awake in class. Luckily  next week we start land navigation which I’m very excited for; of course, we’re also starting our history class, which is supposed to lead to the most recycles throughout our course, so they should balance out.  Here’s to a great weekend, you have a great one!

Good morning everyone! I woke up at 0445 this morning, brushed my teeth, shaved, made my bed (I sleep on top of my covers so I don’t have to make my bed every morning!), took out my trash, and went out for PT at 0530. PT was fun: each platoon in the company had a different OC lead their PT. Third platoon’s PT, lead by OC Page (looks like a mixture of Al Snell and Brock Lesnar), was a card deck work out. Diamonds were power jumps, hearts were push ups, spades were sit ups, and clubs were half jacks, and the card’s number would correspond with the number of reps done.  Took about thirty five minutes; I know I had fun. We finished around 0655 and were given until 0720 to perform hygiene and change into our duty day uniforms.

Breakfast was a feast: french toast with blueberries and syrup; bran flakes with chocolate milk; egg and sausage on wheat bread; oatmeal with brown sugar, peanut butter, raisins, and mixed nuts; yogurt with mandarin oranges; a V8; and lastly a peach! I figure that since we only have ten minutes to eat I can’t possibly be over eating!

    Here’s to a good day of staying awake in class, acing my leadership/military justice exam, and not sweating TOO much!


P.S. Here's DS Tuttle's favorite marching cadence:

Hey Hey Josephine,

Oh how do you do,

Do you remember me baby,

Cause I remember you.

We use to go to class,

My favorite subject was you,

The only A I ever made,

Was with the homework you gave.

I used to walk you home,

I used to carry your books,

Ooohhhh Josephine,

You used to give me those looks.

We used to meet in a shack,

Down by the railroad track,

And every time that it rained,

I’d hear you call my name.

Hey Hey Peggy Sue,

I remember you too,

But don’t worry I’m coming home,

So you won’t be alone.

My girl’s a vegetable,

She lives in a hospital,

And I would do anything,

To keep her alive.

My girl’s got a new TV,

It’s called an EKG,

And I would do anything,

To keep her alive.

One day I played a joke,

Pulled the plug and watched her choke,

And that was a funny day,

‘Cause she almost died.

My girl’s a beauty queen,

Front page of a magazine,

And I would do anything,

To keep her in style.

My girl, she’s at it again,

She wants a brand new Benz,

And she can use my credit card,

If she brings a friend.

It’ll be a good ol’ time,

It’ll stay fresh on my mind,

And I’ll call it my birthday gift,

If she says surprise.

For all of those that want to keep up with my life as I go through Officer Candidate School, this is the place to be! I'll do my best to update you on my life as often as I can, whether this is when I'm bored in class, have a little bit of extra free time, or on Sundays.

Right now I'm sitting on my floor procrastinating studying for my first exam (on leadership and military justice) while listening to some pandora (Fryderyk Chopin station, very enjoyable piano for studying).  Later tonight I have to go around and check on my squad (9 great males and females). I have to check their rooms to make sure they're up to standard, make sure their compasses all work, grab some paper work, and make sure their poor little feet are doing well after our four mile ruck march this morning. Afterwards I'll fold clothes and then move on to my true passion: Game of Thrones.

I hope you all are doing great, email me or text me if you want to catch up!

P.S. One story from basic before I go! It was the last Sunday before graduating from basic training and we were just given a whole hour to call our family (this was amazing considering we had only been given two ten minute phone calls in the last nine weeks). At one point during the call someone from another platoon started cursing "f*%k first platoon" at one of my platoon-mates who was talking to his family at the time; said platoon-mate then went on to curse out the other trainee and then told the drill sergeant about the whole incident (this guy was 28 and still couldn't hold his tongue or have a civil conversation, the Army is a colorful bunch of people). One of my drill sergeants (DS Leblanc, a 24 year old crossfitting female combat medic, think the princess from the movie brave with tattoos and more curse words).  She called the whole company to attention, did her best to get the whole story from both trainees, and then spent the next ten minutes calmly telling these grown men why they should respect one another and why cursing each other out is never the answer (all the while stopping every seventh word to stop herself from cursing). After this very nice and rare moment in which a drill sergeant didn't make anyone do push ups but used conflict resolution, another drill sergeant, DS Savage (yes that's his real name, picture a bald infantryman with the voice of batman when he's angry) had to put in his two cents.  He walks in front of the company, says "Well that was nice.  I'm more of a visual person." He then proceeds to calmy walk over to the guidons (military flags, each platoon had one) and separately threw each flag at least thirty feet. There's something about a pissed off grown man throwing flags that I'll never forget.  I'll also never forget his speech after that: He went on to talk about his time right after basic training.  One week after he completed basic training he was already being deployed to Iraq.  One week after that he had to clean up a commander's tent which had been hit by a friendly grenade.  His description wasn't pretty, please take my word for it.  He went on to talk about how in the Army you have no choice of who your coworkers are, and chances are at one point or another you'll be stuck with them for 9+ months in a space no bigger than a queen sized bed where you keep all of you equipment and also sleep.  Basic training had a lot of fun moments, it had a lot of hard and frustrating ones too, but I can tell you that this one was special.  To see both of these DS's try to teach us in the best way they knew how, not how to fire a weapon or how to march but how to be better people. DS Savage was a man of few words but he bore his soul to the entire company because he sincerely wants us to be good and reliable soldiers, able to handle the tasks which we'll be given. This is one of the moments that I told myself I'd lock away and never forget.

I had planned for this blog to be short and sweet posts but I guess some stories deserve more than that!