Hi everybody! There's a lot to fill you in on so let me get right into it!

First off, as of last night I received my branch (job area): Military Intelligence with a branch detail in Field Artillery.  What this is means is that for the first 2-3 years of being an officer I will be a Field Artillery officer which starts with their Basic Officer Leader Course (BOLC); the FA-BOLC, located at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, is an 18 week course which will teach me everything I need to be an FA officer.  After that I'll probably get sent to a few more schools (I'm hoping for at least Airborne, Air Assault, Pathfinder, and Ranger school if I'm feeling saucy) and then finally serve as an FA officer.  Once I complete all of the required leadership looks within FA, which takes about 2-3 years, I'll then be sent to the Military Intelligence BOLC at Fort Huachuka, Arizona, a 16 week course which  instructs me to be an MI officer.  After that course and any other schools MI sends me to I'll finally serve as an MI officer, my main goal when joining the Army.

Although Field Artillery never crossed my mind until about a month ago, I'm very excited for my BOLC and to serve as an FA officer.  A few reasons for wanting to join FA: to branch pure intelligence in OCS requires you to be in the top ~15% in your OCS class, and I didn't reach that. Secondly, most career intelligence folks I have talked to have suggested that doing combat arms before intelligence would make me an asset within intelligence, as my knowledge would not only be in intel operations but also battlefield tactics, strategies, and unit capabilities.  Lastly, the FA branch deals mostly in joint operations, receiving fire requests from infantry or armor units, and coordinating with our own artillery or any air assets we have to destroy a target; this foray in combined arms can only improve my understanding of military joint operations and make me more of an asset within the intelligence field. Oh yeah, and it will also be pretty cool to call in air/artillery strikes and to blow things up from miles away!

Onto the past week: from last Monday (11th) through this Tuesday (19th) my company spent a week in the field doing our squad field leadership exercise.  The purpose of this exercise was to give us candidates two chances to brief and lead a squad (10 people).  We would get up at 0445, do personal hygiene, pack up our gear, put on camouflage, eat our MRE, and get ready to move out by sunrise. Throughout the day we would run five missions with a different member of our squad leading the mission each time.  The squad leader would receive a fragmented order (FRAGO) (some brief information on the mission and our enemy) and would have 45 minutes to plan and brief the mission to our squad (about 20-25 minutes to plan and the rest to brief and rehearse).  This would leave us about an hour to conduct our mission, which included a ~400m movement through the woods, a short recon of the enemy's position, and if not seen first, we would conduct a deliberate attack on the enemy's position.  Every once in the while we would get lost, and most of the time we would get seen first, but the mission always ended with an attack on the enemy's position, some loud bangs between our M16s, M249s, and their M240Bs, a clearing and search of their position, and a brief after action review.  We would be in the field from 0645 until about 1630, so thank God we conducted our missions in the shade of of the forest because it was roughly 95 degrees with unbearable humidity at all times.  Once back we would eat a warm meal, clean our weapons, conduct personal hygiene, shoot the shit, and then head to bed.  While our sleeping arrangements were generally awesome (close quarters permanent tents with AC and a limited amount of spiders) our stench was tangible, with our grossness becoming more apparent with every baby wipe shower. Luckily every other day was a day off where we would clean the base, clean our weapons, or try not to fall asleep in view of the commander.

Overall I had a lot of fun; the heat never became overwhelming, patrolling through the woods was fun and even relaxing, the missions were exciting, shooting at our buddies with blanks was a blast, and the spiders were decent enough to not show themselves when biting me (I never saw a single spider on me but I figure the 40 or so bites and bumps prove I must have been appetizing).

Now in week 8, I can't believe OCS is almost done!  This upcoming Monday through Friday we have a platoon field leadership exercise followed by a 12 mile ruck march, a PT test, and then 2-3 weeks of out-processing. I'm constantly surprised how quickly this course is passing by; it seems like the next time I wake up I'll already be shooting 155mm howitzers in Oklahoma, and by next week I'll be in Arizona learning the finer points of being an intel officer!  I have a lot of training ahead of me but I constantly keep my long term goals in the back of my mind while doing my best to enjoy every moment I'm living in. Hope you all are doing well, and please give me a call if you want to learn more about what's going on in my life!