I'm not trying to scare you or anything...

I had my first OCS orientation or Phase 0 drill. The drill itself was pretty relaxed. We spent most of our time listening to presentations. We had one that was a basic overview of the National Guard OCS process - requirements to enroll, dates, etc. One was briefing on the education benefits in the National Guard. Not to sound like an advertisement, but there is so much money available to pay for college through the Guard that you could possibly go to college and actually get paid to do it. It's not bad for someone like myself that already has a bachelor's degree either. If you happen to have student loans, the Guard will pay them back or they will help pay for a Master's degree. Our most interesting brief was a review of the AMA OCS Officer Candidate guide, though.

A recent OCS graduate gave us the brief, so he was able to give us some helpful advice based on his experience mixed in with the review. Several of his stories began with "I'm not trying to scare you or anything, but ...". This was kind of the theme for the weekend though. Everyone from the officers and sergeants running Phase 0 to one of the TAC officers (TAC officers are instructors for OCS, it stands for Teach, Assess, and Counsel) that stopped by seemed to use this phrase when talking about OCS. Of course when someone has to qualify their stories with by saying something like that, you can probably be safe by assuming that they are trying to scare you. Well maybe not really scare, but just get you to mentally prepared for what's ahead.

There is so much in the OC guide to learn. Not only do you have to learn it, it has to be learned EXACTLY like it is in the guide. There's a process, an exact process, for everything, from addressing the TAC officers and NCO's, to entering a room, to going to the dining facility. The DFAC procedure is a doozie. The menu has to be read, the food has to be blessed, push ups, situps, and pull ups must be done, just to name a few of the steps. It's definitely a good thing that I have about 5 months to study the guide. For any of you who plan on going to OCS at Ft. McClellan or if you just want to look over the OC guide for fun, you can read it here.

We also had a diagnostic PT test. Luckily they let us take it Saturday afternoon, when it wasn't so cold outside. This one didn't really count for anything. It was just so everyone knows where they stand as far as PT is concerned. By the May drill, they want everybody to score a minimum of 70 points in each event. I'm already at this level, but I didn't do as well as I would have liked too. I only scored a 226, which if you followed my BCT posts you know that substantially lower than my final PT test in BCT. This is directly the result of my laziness during the holidays. I imagine it would have been much worse if I hadn't been doing CrossFit for a few weeks. I expect to score higher each month between now and June. My goal is a 275 before I begin OCS. I'm going to add some runs a few days a week in addition to my CrossFit workouts to help meet my goal. It's going to take some work, but it will be worth it. We will run everywhere we go during OCS, so I have to be prepared.

The last thing we did this weekend was begin our OCS packets. I'm in good shape here. The only things I need to complete my packet are college transcripts and an autobiography. The transcripts are easy. It's the autobiography that I'm not looking forward to. The sooner I get my packet completed and officially get enrolled in OCS the sooner I get promoted though. I found out that I'll get promoted to E-6 while I'm in OCS. This was a nice surprise. I thought I'd get paid as an E-5.

This concludes another exciting glimpse into my life and my military career. I hope you enjoy it and come back for the next update, which hopefully I'll have something for you between now and next month's drill.