Labor Day

It's Labor Day weekend, which brings a few extra days off for us. I have been in IOBC for about a month now and it has gone OK so far. I did well on my fitness test and land navigation but had trouble qualifying with my M4 rifle this time around. It is frustrating because I qualified the first time in my last class and now I am having difficulties. I do not like shooting my M203, which is a grenade launcher attached to the standard M4. This makes it tough for me to maneuver the rifle quickly since it is much heavier, especially when I am supporting it with only my arms. I have learned a lot since I started this class, mainly from NCOs who have just gotten back from Iraq and teach us the real way to do things, and sometimes not how the book says. Many of the manuals we use are products of cold war mentality and more specifically,Vietnam. Not to say the information isn't useful, but assaults on a target in the woods or the jungle do not really happen in the conventional military much more. In Iraq, a vast majority of combat takes place within urban areas, making situations much more complex, especially in a counterinsurgency environment when it is hard to distinguish friend from foe and having to bridge cultural and religious differences between particular groups within those areas. The biggest negative part about the class is the training environment. Most of our instruction comes from NCOs, which is great to an extent, since they have an enormous amount of experience. But we are treated like basic trainees many times, making it feel like daycare. In some ways, it forces us to act like kids because we are treated like it, so we end up screwing around often, as well as wasting large amounts of time every day. One some days when we go to the field for training, we show up at 0600 to draw our weapons, then come back at 0745 or 8 to actually load the bus and go to the range. Then once I go through the training iteration on the range that lasts from 10 minutes to a half hour, I wait for about 6 hours for everyone else to get done. The next few weeks should be the same kind of stuff.

Week off

Well, it's Wednesday, July 30, and my next class, the Infantry Officer Basic Course, starts Monday morning, at the comfortable 04000. We had graduation for BOLC II on Thursday morning, and on Fri I drove down to Panama City to be with Christina during my 4-day pass they gave us. I got back yesterday afternoon. So, if you would like to know what we do during the week in between our classes, we show up for PT at 0545, workout, show up for another formation at 0900 and once again at 1300, or 1PM. What is nice is that I haven't got stuck with any crappy work details so far so most of my friends and I have been able to just go back to our houses or apartments and rest and take care of personnel stuff, which I have been doing all day. So this week not much is happening, which is fine with me. I was able to set up my language classes on Rosetta Stone recently and have already completed a few lessons. I am taking Arabic for the Army requirement and German as an additional one. Arabic is definitely going to harder to learn since I have no prior knowledge of it as well as having a much different alphabet. German goes much faster since I am able to read and learn it much faster. Its been nice and hot every day here so at least I can count on that. I will write again after a few weeks of class.
Eric

BOLC II

I started my training June 9th and now have 3 of 7 weeks complete. The first class I am taking is the Basic Officer Leader Course II, or BOLC II. Since I am brand new to the Army, I have learned quite a bit in the first few weeks. I qualified with my M4 carbine rifle the first time I tried this last week after only a few hours a prior practice. I didn't get a great score but since I passed my first try I was pretty happy. I could have tried to get a better score for fun but it was about 97 degrees outside and my safety glasses had sweat running down them making them blurry, while my eyes were burning at the same time. That was a fun day except it was miserable at the same time.
The first week of the class was all in processing (getting all my information into the Army system) so I will get paid and all my personnel information is correct. I will not get paid by the Army until July 1st (hopefully). And even then, my pay rate will be wrong because as of a few days ago I should be a 1st Lt.
The second week we did combatives, which really means wrestling moves. When I take more advanced courses, like the one that starts in August, they will teach us how fight standing up more so than just from positions on the ground. It was fun since I have never learned standard wrestling moves or even wrestled. Since I have bony knees, they got bruised up and were pretty sore for a few days.
The third week we practiced marksmanship and then qualified with out rifle on a big shooting range. The ear plugs they gave us worked very well, so I was thankful for that. The only thing that is not so fun about training is that for every good hour I get instruction or practice shooting or something of that nature there is a bout four hours of sitting and waiting for the NCOs to come tell us what to do. The communication flow is not very well organized and thus we end up sitting around waiting for people and/or waisting vast amounts of time that would be appalling in the private sector workplace. We also got to do a night fire on the same range, where we had to get up before 3 AM, but we got to use our night vision goggles, which helped us get used to them since we will use those all the time in various situations.
Next week we will be practicing urban operations and short range marksmanship.
Christina and I have been able to spend the last couple weekends together thankfully. Last weekend for my birthday, we went to Atlanta and walked around the Georgia aquarium, which was cool except there were so many people there. We walked around town for a while and went to random places and then came back here. This weekend we stayed around here, which was nice, even though it rained a lot yesterday, and is going to rain today as well. Next weekend for 4th of July, I am going down to Panama City to stay with Christina for the weekend.

I made it!

Well, it's finally May 22nd and I am now officially in the U.S. Army. My time in the Air Force is difficult to explain, but I did somewhat in the first entry. These last few weeks I have been running around all over Eglin AFB to get signatures and checked off for certain things required to out process the base as well as the AF in general. 21 May was my official last day in the AF, and I took my Army oath this morning with my friend Scott. It feels a little weird now that I won't be driving to Eglin in the morning every day, but at the same time I feel liberated in the fact that I will be taking on a new challenge with something that may not (actually I am sure it will not) be as comfortable and easy as my now previous assignment. My commitment to the Army is three years starting today! It would seem like a long time to most, but I think of it more as (at least) a three year adventure taking me to distant and exciting places in the world, although they may not be as safe as the states. I have gotten most all of my supplies ready for training, which starts on June 8th. Christina and I will be getting ready to move on the 28th when the movers come to pick up our stuff. Then the next day I will drive up to Ft. Benning, GA and begin looking for a house. I always wanted to be a soldier but I realized, with my wife's help, that I simply joined the wrong ROTC detachment at OSU. I do not regret my decision to join AFROTC, I learned a lot and made many friends, but I am assuming I would have fit in better in Army ROTC. Many in my AF detachment had the wannabe pilot syndrome where they would do anything and everything to become pilot, even if that meant screwing over your friends or putting yourself above all else, which is the common attitude. I chose not to try to be the #1 person in college, and that doesn't mean that I could have if I tried. I wanted to be a simple cadet, work hard in everything, commission, and do well in my job that I hopefully enjoyed. I have nothing against those that I graduated with who had better grades than me or who were stratified higher than me; they worked hard for it and they deserved it. Sometimes I questioned their motives but the majority of the time they had unselfish ones. Why am I telling you this? Because, I believe, there is a fundamental flaw with our system we have today. Call me cynical, or call it wishful thinking. Everyone's goal in ROTC, of course, is to make it through four years of school and training, and commission. I remember my commander teaching us the difference between groups and teams and he said that we didn't have a common goal, we were not a team. We were just a group of kids who all had their own goals, without any team oriented goals. He was right! Everyone's individual goal was to get the best grades, best ranking, best career field (most waned pilot of course). So everyone commissioned with different accomplishments, grades, and subsequent jobs in the AF. My commander also explained to us how that changes very much on active duty where a unit is working together to accomplish a mission. I was excited to be in a unit like that where people weren't competing with each other because they were thinking about how better to work together to accomplish the mission at hand. Looking back at my first assignment now, I regret the fact that I don't believe I was in a unit like that. Who knows, it may have been different if I was in maintenance, communications, etc. What was hammered into us time and again was how to get stratification, what we needed to do to get bullets on our performance reports, what is good to have on award packages, etc. Not once were we taught how to work together as a team (probably difficult due to the nature of our unit). The most important thing we were told was how to get promoted to the next rank, what we need to do, what kind of jobs we need to have, what are career killers, etc. They talked about how going on a deployment as an acquisition officer looks good on your performance report. Wow, I don't remember them saying you should go on a deployment to serve your country or contribute to the mission, but rather for a couple lines on a performance report. Since many Army soldiers have deployed 2, 3, 4 times to OEF or OIF, do you think that all they are thinking about over there is this is going on my performance report? Probably not, more like staying alive, watching my buddy's back and completing the mission. This is what I am hoping for in my new unit in the Army. I know that I will go on several deployments during my time. But we will be a team working together for the common goal, not doing our own thing, and maybe helping out a friend if it may benefit us.
I can see how this mirrors civilian society. In America, our society is based on money, capitalism. I don't believe there is anything wrong with that. But, as no system is perfect, capitalism can have some negative qualities as well. In this country, outstanding individual achievement is the most highly regarded quality in a person, whereas team accomplishments are usually not as respected. For example, in baseball is a player who broke the single season home run record (even though he may have an * next to his name) or that another team won a few championships? I admit, it depends on the situation, but just think about it in general. In America, if get educated, work hard, and you don't try to cheat, then in most cases you will make a good life for you and your family. This is the greatness of our society: it doesn't matter where you start, but only what you do after you start. But it seems that some will do anything to get rich. I will get off my soapbox for now, and in no way do I intend to sound self-righteous or that everyone else is wrong. From my experiences, I have been trying to understand why things are the way they are. I am the same as every other human who wants to well and achieve more: I worked hard, got decent grades, and now I am successful so far. This has been the story of most Americans. The problem is once you start having success, you want more and more and more, and that is when it is difficult remember to think of what is best for this team I am a part of, could be your family, friends, unit, company, etc... If you agree or disagree with me on any of this, please comment. I like to hear other people's opinions about anything, it gives me an even greater perspective. I will write again soon when I get closer to my training.

Pre-separation

As most of you know, I am transferring to the Army on May 22nd. I am so thankful that it worked out and I was approved every step of the way. Having to depend on several different people to push my paperwork when they most likely have many other people to deal with is frustrating at times, but they helped me out and it worked at out at the end of the day so I am happy. I will later write why I did this, but first let me tell how I did.


OCT/NOV 07: I had been weighing my options of what to do next in the AF, whether to go to AFIT (graduate school for the AF), cross-train for one tour in maintenance or something like that, voluntarily separate under the force shaping program, or do a simple four years here at Eglin and then separate, move to Panama City where Christina works and go to grad. school there, maybe studying math or engineering again. There also was this force shaping program that allowed people in the AF to interservice transfer to the Army (Blue to Green). It sounded interesting, but I never really had given it serious thought. So in the fall I started doing a lot of research on what types of career fields it had, where training was, what was entailed in that training, promotion opportunities, etc. Many various things attracted me about it, mainly the fact that the training sought to prepare you to be a platoon leader (normally the first job you get as a 2LT), and being a soldier in general, teaching you technical (land navigation, weapons qualification, communication, etc) and tactical (how to lead a squad, platoon on various types of missions - patrols, raids, ambushes, stability operations, etc.). This is in stark contrast to my AF initial training, which I will briefly explain. After I commissioned in Dec 2006, I went straight to Maxwell AFB, AL for Air and Space Basic Course. This course is 6 weeks of PowerPoint and leadership briefings from Colonels and Generals. Some of the presentations were very interesting, coming from certain perspectives, but after a few weeks became very repetitive. We (my flight of about 14 i think) were forced to play these simulated war games where us new college grads had no idea what to do, so we naturally resorted to throwing paper balls with golf balls inside at each other, bad idea. To sum it up, everything I learned at ASBC was for the two tests we took, which tried to trick us at every turn, so they could limit the amount of people who got 100s, sly huh. What I didn't learn was how to learn my eventual job better or how to contribute more effectively to whatever mission we had. The whole thing is just another check box to fill, some hoping to get top flight in the squadron (which we surprisingly did) to make General some day!! Then after a few months at Eglin in the Mission Planning Systems Test Flight, attempting to learn the basics of my new assignment, I went to Wright-Patterson AFB, OH, the HQ of AF engineering. The class I took was the fundamentals of acquisition management, for any LT who was in the acquisition career field, which was quite a few. We went through each step in the acquisition process, plus some other stuff, in 3 weeks. Then we got our wings, I mean, our badge for our BDUs, but didn't get our certificates until we sent our travel voucher back to WPAFB, which was a few months for me, ha. Anyway, the whole point of this was to show that the two training classes I went to did not help me with my job one bit. They were just check boxes to fill. Plus, some of the people at the class in Ohio were, sorry to say, nerds. They would sit on the computer, talk about computer games, try to get distinguished graduate in a 3 week class, and almost everybody talked about how cool their job was and how important it was. I was about ready to call in sick I couldn't stand it anymore. So, to compare this training to that which I will receive in the Army, there is no comparison. My job in the Army, I was approved for Infantry, will be to lead a platoon of about 35 soldiers and eventually be Company Executive Officer, and in a few years as Captain, Company Commander. That is a lot of responsibility for an LT or even a CPT (captain). By the way, Christina is making pancakes right now, I hope she didn't burn them :). To sum up this drawn out section, AF training and education does not help me with my job or with most jobs I may have, but Army training does. That is a big reason why i transferred, but not the main one.



DEC 07: I assembled the paperwork for my separation; it took several weeks trying to get the format of the staff package correct. Man how the AF likes to have pretty paperwork. So I finally got it signed by my SQ/CC around new years. It, of course, had to go through the mail routing system, until the Wing/CC signed it a few weeks later, I was glad it worked out and they were cool with it.



JAN 08: I took separation approval to the base personnel people on Jan 16, and they sent it to AF Personnel Center in San Antonio, TX. It took them 3 weeks to determine that my career field was overmanned (the whole point of force shaping - a fancy term for RIF or reduction in force, cutting people , whatever you want to call it), and then they sent it to the Secretary of the Air Force personnel council, where it took about 2.5 weeks to approve, and the AF approval letter came to me about Feb 22.



FEB 08: After some arguing on the phone with an NCO about getting the formal approval letter with a signature on it (what the Army wanted) instead of an email, she finally sent it and forwarded it to the Army personnel people I had been working with. It took about 2-3 weeks to get approval from the Army assistant secretary for personnel, but it worked out!



MAR 08: After I found out the Army approved, they scheduled me for my two basic training classes, Basic Officer Leader Course 2 and Infantry BOLC. The first one starts on June 8 and the next one on Aug 3. I will be done with both of those on Nov 4. I will be writing posts most days when I am not in the field about what fun things I have been doing each day. After I got my training scheduled, I talked to my assignment manager and I told her that Hawaii was our first pick for an assignment after training was over, then Germany, Korea, Benning (where i will be training) and Carson in Colorado Springs. We were so happy to find out she got Hawaii for me! We didn't really expect to get that of course, but hey we got lucky again. So after these classes (I will also have to go to airborne, another specialized class particular to my unit - mortar leader course, recon and surveillance course, and after that i will go to Ranger School, which is by far the most difficult) I will report to Hawaii to eventually take over a platoon. We will not go to Hawaii until about April of 2009 because I have a lot of training ahead of me.



Now that you know how I got here, this is why I am doing this:

As i mentioned above, the training that the Army gives you is precisely what you need in your job, not some theoretical pie in the sky briefings and tests that don't teach you how to be more effective in the real world. That is just a benefit of the Army. The main reason is because I don't want to be a young officer and be in an office environment. I know that eventually as an officer, it is inevitable, but right now i should be developing my leadership skills and interacting with enlisted men. The main job I have at my current job is making sure the refrigerators are stocked with soda and there is no cardboard in the break rooms. I was ok with that at first, but for 6 months it gets old. Another thing is that if there isn't a certain type of soda in the fridge, it gets through the chain of command and eventually i find out about it, and i get in trouble. If i don't do something in my real job, it's not really a big deal. So it comes down to priorities; if an old 50 something fat contractor doesn't have his diet soda and candy bar, all hell breaks loose.

Another reason why i switched is because i would like to experience at least a few deployments while I am young. As an engineer in the AF, your deployment opportunities are limited, and they only take captains and majors, and to top it off you may go individually to some random unit doing who the hell knows. As an infantry LT, yeah it may be more dangerous, but i would be going with men i know well and trust, the same guys i have been with for several months, and you can bet that when i get to HI, that i will go somewhere within a few months. I like that idea of unit cohesiveness and camaraderie.

There are countless smaller, less insignificant, reasons, namely: i would like to do my small part in this current conflict and don't feel that i am doing anything here, the people that i would be working with have a much different mindset than those i work with now. The people here do everything they can to impress their superiors instead of actually contributing to the MISSION. All we talk about in squadron settings is what we need to do to check different boxes in pursuit of promotions or special programs. My friend Scott and I were remembering that not once in the briefing did we hear "war", or "duty" or "country" and only heard deployment as a means of padding the officer performance report (OPR). In Army Officer Evaluation Reports (OERs), people probably have multiple deployments on it and that is normal. I don't expect to be rewarded when I deploy in the near future because its just normal to them. But to the AF acquisition community, a deployment is like you went to Afghanistan, fought bin Laden in hand to hand combat, and brought back his head on a platter to the President. Don't get me wrong, that would be sweet, but everyone who goes on a deployment from our squadron or other acquisition units wants to make a freaking PowerPoint presentation (what we do best) on what their experience was like making presentations, like this one, to random people and doing paperwork in the AOR (Area of Responsibility). Don't think that there are no airmen doing great work while deployed. Pilots, Navs, maintenance, definitely Civil engineering, i might say they work the hardest (construction workers on steroids - but not literally), communications, and on and on. The true nature of acquisitions is that it is support; we don't directly fight the war. We produce the weapons that the pilots, navs, maintenance, etc, fight the war with. So in certain ways you can see that we are an important part of the bigger picture, and we are. However, some people do great in this business oriented environment, and that is awesome. Most of the people in know in my unit are engineers, very bright, skilled at what they do, but don't quite understand why I am doing what i am doing, except for a few. I want everyone to know who reads this that i have nothing against them. they are great people who do an important job developing high-tech weapons for the present and future battlefield. The only part where we differ is that this job just simply isn't for me. i have given it a chance for almost a year, but i finally decided it was time to something in which i would have fulfillment and more in line with my perspectives and attitudes.



A newer friend, Scott, has pretty much the exact same thoughts about everything that I do. He is one of those guys that you are glad is on your side, because i would be scared to death of him if i was a terrorist (especially if you made him mad). I am not a huge guy, so if i got mad i would be scrappy but wouldn't be able to knock you over like a charging rhino, and that horn, OUCH! He is going through the same process as me but with the Navy. He is hoping to get selected to go to BUD/S training this summer. This is Basic Underwater Demolition/ SEAL training. Much more difficult than my Infantry and Ranger pipeline, the SEAL pipeline is brutal, mentally and physically, and they can kick you out even if you look at them funny. So in some cases, you get through with a little luck, but in all cases you get through with sheer mental and physical toughness, no questions asked, you cant skate through. Neither can i skate through in any of the training i will be doing, especially Ranger School. I am doing what i am doing because i believe it is within my potential, i don't know if i could make it through SEAL training, that is a different level. I am fully confident that he will get in and make it through. It is even harder for officers to even get accepted for training, and probably harder to pass once you are in. He wants to reach his full potential just like i do, while being in the special warfare word, while i will be in more conventional units, for this part of my career anyway. I wish him the best of luck getting in, getting through, and getting that Trident.


The things i will be doing in the next few weeks before i separate from the AF and take the Army oath of office on May 22nd:

Getting all my personnel papers, medical, dental records, etc. together

We will move our stuff out at the end of May

I am going to Ft Rucker, AL in a few weeks to get all of my new uniforms, and other stuff

Prep as much as i can studying the field manuals for tests i will have to take during training

Work out as much as i can with 12mile marches and 10 mile runs on the weekends and weight lifting all during the week in the mornings

Studying the training schedules so i know what to expect for the next year

Try not to get too anxious because i do way too often

Pack up and jet.



Once i get to Ft Benning in May, I will most likely be living on base with a couple other guys in my infantry class in a 3 bedroom house close to where all of our training is. it should work out very well. i am very excited to start this new part of my life here in a few weeks. I am trying not to think about it too much so it will go by faster.



Well that's my last 6 months in a nutshell, all the while enjoying the Florida warmth and sun, even though right now there is a flash flood watch and lightning and thunder outside, I'm scared.

Feel free to post comments or questions on the comments tab, and i will check them regularly to respond in kind. In the future it may take longer to respond for a few days, weeks, months at a time but i let you know.

Eric