OCS Week 3

13^th November 2011

Monday morning the scheduled PT was combative training however, the Trainers decided that it would be more beneficial for us to run, do overhead arm claps, go through a mini obstacle course with monkey bars, 25 foot rope climb, wall hurdles, and tire flips.  Then we sprinted around the track and got into formation and then we did bear crawls, crab walks, army rolls, and buddy carries.  It was really a very good workout, a lot of people were complaining and though that we were getting smoked but I just thought we were finally getting a solid workout session.  We then had a very short breakfast and then we changed quickly so we could get to our Leadership 1 class.  This class was run very well, it is a 3 hour class but the instructor has a good dry humor and he also has a very good ability to keep the class engaged so it was pretty easy to stay awake.  After his class we went to lunch and then we were supposed to have some elite training but it was cancelled.  This was actually a good thing because we then had one of our Sergeants give an extra class on plotting grids on a map and how to succeed at our land navigation which is one of the harder things to pass in this course.  As we were packing up to go back to the barracks First Sergeant Ruiz came into the room and he was pissed because someone changed or locked out the computer in the computer lab so we got a nice little 15-20 minute smoke session.  The one thing that I notice is that the people that have come here as in service meaning they have been in the Army for a while have become soft and are so use to having things relaxed and when you make a mistake it is just a conversation saying you need to fix yourself.  The people that have come directly from basic may not have the experience that they do but it seems like we work a lot harder and when we are told to do something we do it and these so called smoke sessions that we receive here, we think they are a joke, being smoked at basic training was so much worse.  After this we received our personal mailboxes and we were then on study barracks.  The last thing that we had was Branch Briefings this is where people from all the different branches come and talk to us about why their respective branch is the best and why we should choose them when we branch. 

Tuesday we started the day off with another 5 mile ruck march, as we were getting to the top of cardiac hill all of a sudden some of our names started getting called out from the parking lot and as we took a closer look it was around 6 of the Drill Sergeants that we had from basic this just reminded me that I am so glad that I am not there any longer.  After we finished the ruck we went right to breakfast and then we had Leadership 2 another 3 hour class on leadership.  We had the same instructor and again he was good at keeping the class high speed and interesting.  The afternoon was filled with more classes this time on the Military Justice, this is to ensure that we understand the codes and conducts that we are expected to abide by when we are overseas.  There quite a few things to remember on this subject but when you really look at it they are common sense.   After dinner we had the last set of Branching options and I have decided that my top three choices are Infantry, Armor, and Field Artillery. 

Wednesday and Thursday were more of the same just a bunch of classes with long winded lecturers which makes it more of a task to stay awake than anything.  Thursday morning  we had our first release run it was a 3 mile we had to complete it in 27 minutes or faster I was able to bang it out in 19 minutes and 30 seconds, I was hoping to get in the 18’s but I did not pace myself correctly. 

Friday was pretty nice, it was Veterans Day and we spent the morning at the NIM (National Infantry Museum).  It was really cool getting to talk with WW2 and Vietnam Veterans.  You can see the appreciation in their eyes that we are taking time out of our day to be there.  But what they do not understand is that we love it just as much and the fact that a retired Full Bird Colonel is giving is advice is amazing.  Later that day I was honored with two other soldiers that we were asked to do a little presentation for some Boy and Cub Scouts on retiring some old and tattered American Flags.  We marched out and placed the flag on the fire pit and then presented arms.  It really gave me a chill knowing that we were doing this in front of these former warriors. 

Saturday we worked the Soldiers Marathon that they hold on base every year.  It is a way to show the people that we the soldiers appreciate everything they do for us in this community.  It was really fun at the finish line watching these people come in from a 26.2 mile run and fall into your arms from complete exhaustion and they are thanking us for what we do it is truly humbling.  At the end some of the people were losing motivation so we would meet them about 100 meters from the finish and run the rest of the way with them, to show that we were there for them and that we would not let them quit.  All in all it was quite a great weekend and it really showed how much people do care about our military.  Hope you all are doing well and I promise the boring school portion will hopefully soon come to an end and I can get into some better more exciting stuff to write about!

Patrick