new orders

hello family. today was an eventful day here at ocs. we had our senior-level inspection today and, as a company, we passed. three individual rooms need to be re-inspected tomorrow (not mine). this is one of the last milestones in our cycle.

we had a briefing on our discharge paperwork; see, you can't be enlisted and an officer, so we are receiving honorable discharges on next wednesday. then we commission the next day as lieutenants. fortunately my paperwork did not need to be corrected, so i saved myself a lot of time. later, we had our branch lunch. there are no ordnance officers in our battalion, but sfc flugga is a mechanic in ordnance (on of our current trainers) and he came out with us and talked about some of the goings-on in an ordnance company.

after dinner we had a meeting to discuss the social events and graduation. it should be a fun two weeks, or as fun as possible in this environment. we got our class coin and silver dollars as well. the class coin is commemorative. the silver dollar is traditionally handed to the first enlisted person who salutes you, i'll probably save it for my duty station...

which leads me to the big news. i received my follow on orders. i will be part of the 42nd fires brigade, stationed at ft. hood, tx. this is definitely not the worst assignment out there. unfortunately, i was misinformed about 'snowbirding'. i have to go to texas in november, then i will tdy (temporary duty) over to ft. lee from may 13 to sep 13, then head back to ft. hood. this will have a major impact on lots of things, so we'll have to see how everything works out.

in the short-term, we have our final pt test for record in the morning. i've never taken an apft in the cold weather, i hope i do well. i have been performing in the 250/300 range, it would be nice to beat that.

and the best news, after tomorrow's briefing with the battalion commander in the afternoon, we get full privileges. that means that the end of the work day comes and we get released; we can change clothes, leave post, etc. i don't have anything to do, but the freedom will be nice. the other nice point is that it was confirmed that we are not required to sleep on post after friday, so i can stay at the hotel; good to know.

have to go, need to get up at 0430.