week4

well its been a few days, mostly because we had our pass over the weekend and i took advantage of it. i got to watch the ufc fight in a bar and even had a couple beers. it was a good time, but not really worth it- we ran hard this morning and i could feel the alcohol and food taking its toll over our normally good diet.

today we start a week of operations, tactics and graphics. the operations and tactics have been excellent classes so far. we are learning a lot about the dynamics of battle and war. we will end up having 3 quizzes for practice and a test next week; wednesday.

this week is short, we get friday off. we'll be off fri, sat, sun and mon; therefore next week will be short too. also this week, i am on the chow detail. we go in early for meals and help keep the lines moving, fill drink glasses, clean up tables etc. that will keep me busy for the week.

tonight i have staff duty. an excellent job that involves sitting in a room for two hours and answering a phone that almost never rings. its too easy.

tomorrow we fight with fists!

closing out week 3

well, this is the end of our third week, and we were told that those are the worst as far as freedoms go. so, it'll be nice to reap the benefits of coffee and using cell phones a little more.

i don't have much to report today. we did have our leadership/justice/ethics test. and yes, i did get a 100%... yay me!

other than that, we're cleaning, just making sure we don't lose our pass for this weekend.

follow me!

no gi joe

well, this morning we had platoon run pt and we did enough push-ups to make everyone sore. it was pretty good overall, but at the end our trainers, the cpt and ssg, told us to come up with a new plt nickname and motto; they thought cobra-kai was form gi joe. sucks. we'll see how quickly we find a new motto.

today was leadership 3. like many sequels, it was better than the second one but can't live up to the original. i'm spending the evening studying for tomorrow's exam on the combined subjects of leadership, ethics, justice and law of land warfare. unfortunately i have duty from 0400 to 0600 tomorrow morning, then a 3 mile run. well, who needs to sleep past 0330 anyway ;)

see ya...

cobra kai

in case i haven't mentioned that my platoon kicks ass, well we do. first platoon aka cobra kai! we rucked 5 miles again today and it was our turn to step off last. the pace standards is 16-18 minute miles and we were busting them out in under 15. at the turnaround point, the company first sergeant stopped us and gave us a quick lecture on how its not about passing other platoons and to slow down. we still caught up with the next group...hah!

once you get into a groove, a ruck march can be very peaceful. i take advantage of the time to pray. you can knock out a full 3 rosaries- 15 mysteries- in 5 miles.

today we had 'leadership II'. within the first 20 minutes there were over 30 people standing up because they were falling asleep.

as i was sitting in class, learning about the army's equivalent to a corporate performance review, i started thinking about work. me last two jobs had a lot of similarities; my new job is obviously different. but since i've been in training since may, and anticipate training until next year, sometimes i feel like i haven't been at work this whole time. this is weird because we work our butts off, but it's not the same. i wonder what it will be like at my first unit, adjusting back into a routine work life.

not chilling, but grilling.

justice etc

it's tuesday, that means combatives for pt. nothing like some hand to hand combat to start the day.

we lost our first soldier to injury. one of the women in our platoon- my squad actually- hurt her pelvis and is being recycled. she'll go back to headquarters barracks to heal up. unfortunately she'll be there for at least 4 weeks, maybe more. then she will probably have to start over with another company. recycled... restarted, the two most frightening words here.

the 1st lesson today was part one of three on leadership. tons of good info, but very dry. i'll have my nose in field manuals all week for this test. after lunch we had the law of war and some uniform code of military justice. great class, lots of important stuff. also, an energetic instructor who kept it moving.

early morning tomorrow, off we march.

nite.

hoo-whee, the alpha ability group for running is sure stepping it up. this morning we ran 7.3 miles, including a trip up the aptly named 'cardiac hill'. on the way back to barracks, we saw a buck and a doe on the road, beautiful creatures. the 3 mile release run we have this week should be too easy after the training we've been getting.

today we had ethics classes all day with the chaplain. he was fairly entertaining, a funny guy- and he got some good messages across. we talked about the 'judicious application of violence'. we spoke of the justness of a war and just acts in a war. heavy stuff.

** despite the topics, it is very difficult to stay awake after lunch and we aren't allowed caffeine until this saturday =(

besides a run later this week we have another ruck march an exam and an essay due friday. should be a good one.

peace in afghanistan.

another week down

we had a nice weekend here on ft. benning. a little hot but ok. we had free time for all of 8 hours on sunday again. church was nice, and a few of us went to see 'inglorious basterds'. great flick, especially if you like tarantino's work and hate nazis.

i had won a bet last week regarding the squad competition, so my battle-buddy finn had to buy me lunch- little caesars woot!

i had two hours of duty at the battalion office; fortunately my partner there and i had a good conversation so it went by quick because it was pretty uneventful.

i am working on an application type packet to get into medical services. keep me in your prayers everyone. i spent some time on the cover letter, it should be ready to go monday.

got a haircut in the evening, made some phone calls then off to dream-land.

whole lotta nothin goin on

nothing like pumping up the day with the graduation run! its a nice 4 mile trot around the area down by the airborne field and back up the hills. we took it at a good clip, had a good run with the general, and congratulated echo company; they're out of here this thursday. i can't wait until we're over there, only 9 weeks.

after cleaning up on the exams this morning, i celebrated with a piece of pecan pie at lunch. as restricted as we are here, since i just got here from basic training it feels like club med.

the afternoon was literally filled with air. we had company trainer time, but i didn't see any trainers at all. we had to study/read etc. for 5 hours. sounds easy, but its pretty boring.

we have class tomorrow, and should get off on sunday. just enough time for church and lunch. after this weekend they should be loosening up the reigns a little.

robbie, out.

This is a little test to see if I can blog from my phone. Also I would like to report that I rocked a perfect score on Call for Fire. BOOM!

no dirty rocks

well, we didn't win the warrior tasks and battle drills competition, however my squad had the 2nd fastest overall time. in fact, we would have won, but we were penalized 40 seconds for switching out our casualty, yes we bent a rule, but most teams did and not all were noted. not the end of the world- to be sure.

third platoon picked up dead last, which earns them the dirty rock. a dirty rock is just that, a large rock the size of a mortar round which has to be carried around by someone in the platoon until the next competition when the new last place team will earn the rock. they are required to paint it creatively; depicting an event or challenge. if its really good it goes in the hall of fame in the company day room. capt. has insisted that we do not get any dirty rocks, so we didn't let him down on that one, but he was disappointed that we didn't win.

the course was fun and included assembling weapons, evaluating and treating casualties, assembling a radio and calling in a medevac, tossing a hand grenade (fake one), calling in an activity report and a clear/ functions check on a weapon. all the while you're carrying food (MREs) and a water jug. at one point some 'gets injured' and you have to carry them on a stretcher for the rest of the course. neat stuff, and we got really sweaty out there.

for anyone who doesn't know, an MRE is a meal, ready-to-eat. they are really good if you like this type of thing, if not you'll hate them. i know that makes no sense, but basically people love or hate the food. i recommend any of the vegetarian choices, or anything with candy in it.

we have a light afternoon to study for our first test- call for fire.

cunningham, out!

warrior tasks

this morning started out a little tough, but the day got easy. we got up at 4-ish for a 5 mile ruck march. the bags were fairly heavy and the pace was decent, we covered the 5 in 80 minutes. nothing like finishing that up before the sun rises.

we went into the field, literally a field, and played with weapons today. no firing, just a lot of 'take it apart, put it together' type stuff. then we had a repeat of radios and alert transmissions. we have a competition tomorrow and i'm on the first platoon super-squad. our plt trainer has made it clear that he wants us to win win win.

speaking of, we have our initial counseling with him tonight. captain seems pretty cool, he's a straight shooter. he may head home before my turn, so perhaps tomorrow i'll talk to him.

time is flying here in ocs, way faster than basic training, but the end is still far away.

wish me luck on the SUPER-SQUAD - huah!

back to basics

we had several classes today. the topics were like being back in basic. radios and transmissions, weapon systems, movement tactics and map reading. all of this will come in very handy next month when we have three straight weeks in the field. our field leadership exercises will test our knowledge and aptitude of warrior tasks and battle drills. it should be a very cool 20 days.

so far we have only had three things contributing to the order of merit list, the first physical fitness test, the obstacle course and combat water survivbal test. these all were done in week one. our next points come tomorrow, 25 points for completing a 5 mile march with a 40 pound rucksack on - too easy. hopefully i'll gain some points in the next two weeks. it's hard to balance teamwork and competition, it's like you want to help your buddy, but it helps you if he fails. very weird. after wek 6 the points don't mean crap for branching, so we can all get along again.

sleep tight america.

Week 2 - Monday

we had one of our first in-depth classes today. we spent several hours on the intricacies of 'Call for Fire'. this is an important lesson for a future troop leader, because it allows you to string together the right phrases and information to get somebody's ass blown up. and if you're paying attention- it won't be your ass!

it was hard to stay awake, after running 5 miles this morning, but it helped that they had videos of explosions stuck in the presentation.

we have an exam on this on friday. it is one of the seven graded exams that comprise the academic scores for the OML- order of merit list. this class rank is used for class honors and bragging rights. more importantly, however, is that in our sixth week, we will select our future jobs in the order we are on the list. if you don't do well, you could get stuck with a really crappy job. also, if you get less than a 70% you fail and if you fail the re-test you get kicked out. ouch.

other than that it rained a lot. peace.

first post- week one is done

well, i'm going to give blogging a try here. i kept a journal for my time in basict training and it helped me out in keeping perspective and it gives me a reference iif there's something i want to remember. this will be my version of that record for my time in OCS.

i will not spoil any of what we do behind closed doors, anything that is not intended as public knowledge. but the majority of our course is unclassified and discussed on other websites, so i think i'm ok.

i have just finished the first week of 12 and i am sore and tired, but also energetic and excited about the upcoming curriculum. we have been told by numerous sources that we are in the strictest company here, and i believe it. we have received less than an hour of personal time each day (inwhich we can use our cell phones or pc's plus time to shower and straghten our rooms). it is sunday and we had less than 9 hours to do everything we need for the week. harsh. but it comes with the territory.