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.

First Post of 2011!

Welcome back to another exciting entry in my blog. Well, maybe not exciting, but at least it's a new post, right? Some of you probably thought I had forgotten about this place. I was just taking a break, a longer than intended break.

First off I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, especially all my battle buddies that were able to go home for the holiday's. I know I did. There's nothing like spending the holiday season with family and friends.

Since the my last post, there hasn't been a whole lot of action. I spend the first couple of weeks getting used to my civilian job again. It was strange being back in the office at first. The hardest part was having to sit behind a desk all day. Going from being outdoors and active most of the day to being inactive was hard. This also had an unintended side effect. It made me lazy.

I had a hard time getting up in the morning to do PT. I was only doing PT sporadically. I ran a few morning, but nothing like I should have been doing. It's hard to say motivated when you're on your own and there's no DS around to doing all the "motivating". I guess this is one of the disadvantages of being a reserve component of the Army or any service branch for that matter. You have to have the internal drive to stay in shape and do PT on your own between drills and other training.

It wasn't until this week that I've had a regular workout routine. I started doing CrossFit again. Most of this is due to discovering a CrossFit affiliate in my town (shout out to Caustic CrossFit). I used to do CrossFit on my own, but it's nothing like doing it in a group. I recommend finding an affiliate in your area if you can or at the very least following the WOD's on the CrossFit homepage. You can find a list of CrossFit affiliates here. I really like the workouts, but I'll be honest, they have kicked my butt this week. I've been sore since my first workout on Monday. No big deal though, at least I know I got a good workout in when I'm sore. Here's a couple of pics of me in action.





I've also been handed off to a unit, Bravo Company, 155th Brigade Special Troops Battalion. This will be my unit at least until after OCS, when I get an officer slot. The officer slot I end up with will determine what my permanent unit will be. At least this is how I understand the process.

My first OCS orientation (Phase 0) drill is coming up in a couple of weeks too. I was told that it will be mostly filing out paperwork and other administrative work. We will have a PT test too. I'm a little nervous about that since I didn't do PT like I should up until this week. I've still got 2 weeks to get back up to at least the level of fitness that I was at during BCT though. I can do it, but it'll take some work.

That's it for now I guess. Time to put my daughter to bed, wish me luck.