Water Survival

I've got 73 days left until I ship out. It feels like an eternity away but I'm sure that time will fly and before I know it I'll be in the push-up position being yelled at by Drill Sergeants. :-)

I realize it's been a week and half since my last post. I'm finding that while I'm in DEP (delayed entry program) there isn't a lot of stuff going on. I will try to post updates every week or two and fill ya'll in on my basic training preparation is going.

My focus this past week has been swimming. For those of ya'll who don't know, I HATE swimming. In the past I have had a tendency to freak out and panic when the water would get up to my chin...I have never even learned how to go under water without holding my nose. One part of OCS is a water survival test. There are multiple parts to it but in essence they want to make sure you can survive in water with your ACU's on and all your equipment. This link gives an outline of what the water survival test encompasses.

With the help of a few friends, I have decided to overcome my fear of water and learn how to swim. The first day of lessons was slow and I felt like an idiot through the whole thing. What 25 year old doesn't know how to swim?! I had to get past my pride and just do it. I was taught how to go underwater without holding my nose and how to stay under water without floating back up. That may seem incredibly easy for most of ya'll but for me it was a huge obstacle to overcome. Day 2 we moved into the deep end (9ft)...anything beyond 4ft is a "deep" end for me haha. I was taught how to freestyle swim and breast stroke (I'm still not very good with that one). This was also a big day for me because it was the first time for me to jump off the diving board. The rest of the week I've been focusing on improving my water treading time. The first time I tried to tread water it was for 45 sec but now I'm up to 2 1/2 minutes. Swimming is easy for most people but it's been a fear of mine since I was a little kid. All in all I'd say that this has been a very productive week. :-)

Unfortunately my work-outs have not been very good this week. I'm going to have to step those up next week.

Rappelling & Drill Sergeants

Two words that can put fear into the heart of many people: 1. Rappelling 2. Drill Sergeants.

5 hours of my Saturday were taken up with these two things. First was rappelling. At MSU, ROTC has a rappelling tower. This tower has a 25 ft. fall and a 50 ft. fall. We were lucky enough to go down the 50 ft. fall :-). I was one of the first ones to go. If you don't know anything about rappelling I would strongly suggest you check out this rappelling video. I'll try to explain it here. You climb up a tower till you're at the top (50 ft in this case). It actually looks much higher when you're in the air then it does from the ground. BTW, the whole tower sways in the wind while you're climbing up it. So you get up and now your heart is racing because one wrong step and BAM you're smushed on the ground. You wear a harness around your waste (in basic it will be a rope not a harness) and they tie a rope to the harness.

Now comes the scary part. You stand on the ledge with your back to the drop and step down...yeah, step down off of the tower. About a foot below, attached to the side of the tower, is a 2x4. You step down and put both feet on the edge of the 2x4. While standing there you start to lower yourself until you are parallel with the tower. Your back is now facing the ground and your face is up towards the sky. ...take one step back and jump! ...in actuality you bound down the tower. The scary part is becoming vertical but once you're jumping down it's very fun. Check out the link I posted above. It does a fairly good job of showing the rappelling process and fear that many people face.

Ok so now the rappelling is over and we get the honor of spending the next 4 hours with drill sergeants. They taught us how to do drill and ceremony stuff then marched us around for quite a while. Towards the end we had a question and answer time. We ended with the "fun" part...yelling and push-ups. As a group we did push-ups while the Drill Sgts yelled at people who couldn't hold themselves up. When I say that they yelled I mean they really yelled. Thankfully I was not one of the ones they messed with...I didn't drop to my knees so they left me alone. :-)

My recruiter took pictures so when I get them I'll post some.

Ship Out Dates

Here are ship out dates:

Basic: 02 Nov 09 (Ft. Jackson, SC)
OCS: 08 Feb 10 (Ft. Benning, GA)

I'll have a 2 week Christmas exodus which will be both a blessing and curse. I'll get a break during Basic (ya!) but at the same time if I don't kick my butt to stay in shape I will completely regret it when I get back to basic. I'll just have to stay disciplined and focused on being physically fit when I return to basic.

(Future) 2nd Lt. Wingard

I got accepted! Ya!! Alright so I got to the recruiting station at 0500 Friday and we were on the road back to MEPS by 0530. When we arrived at MEPS we were greeted by the good 'ol hurry-up and wait game (again). We got there around 0900 and I was sent to a room with 4 other officer candidate (2 guys, 2 girls). About 2 hours later I was the first person called in to be reviewed by the board.

My recruiter was so nervous he paced the hall back and forth trying to give me some hints and tips before I went in. He pretty much said to be polite, never say "yeah," and be specific when asked about prior leadership experiences.

Finally one of the officers called me in. I felt pretty comfortable and confident all the way up until I sat down in front of them. They showed absolutely no reactions on their faces (positive or negative). They asked questions jotted notes then asked more questions. The questions were like... "Why do you want to be an officer?"..."How have you reacted in the past when a subordinate has been put at your level?"..."What was your most difficult college class and why?"..."What was a difficult choice you had to recently made and what was your thought process in making it?" They asked more questions but they were along the general gist of my leadership experience and my future goals. I tried making a joke but they did not laugh. When they asked me about my most difficult class I said, "Hebrew Prophetic Literature. Just hearing the name sounds scary!" Yeah they did not look pleased. I quickly changed my response and gave them a serious answer. As I was leaving one of the officers smiled and said "Hebrew Prophetic Lit does sound pretty scary."

There were 3 officers and they each had a scoring card. The cards had 9 different scoring areas totaling a possible 75 points. Later my recruiter found out that I maxed board! All 3 officers gave me 75 points. That's just the 2nd time for an OCS candidate to max the board from my recruiting station.

The rest of the day was pretty easy. I signed my contract, swore in, and came back home. I am now officially an OCS candidate and part of the US Army! :-D

Tomorrow...

Tomorrow is the big day. We'll leave around 0530 for the MEPS station again. From what I hear, a few hours after getting there I'll have my interview where the OCS board will decide if I'd make a good Army officer. I'm a little nervous but at the same time very excited! After the interview is over we'll get lunch then I'll go back to the MEPS station, sign my contract, and swear in. :-) I'll post an update and pictures (if any are taken) when I get back. Please pray that it will go well and they'll accept me. Thanks!

MEPS

Ahh MEPS...the long, tedious, hurry-up-and-wait MEPS. Before leaving for MEPS I was told that it would be long and boring and that no one enjoys it. I though did like MEPS. We left around 0900 Thurs morning from Springfield and got to Kansas City at approx 1500 Thurs afternoon (that's 3pm). Thursday was easy. We checked into our hotel and had the rest of the day to relax. I worked out for a while, showered, had dinner, and went to bed early. Our wake up call was at 0330 Friday morning. We were down at breakfast by 0400 and on the bus for MEPS by 0500. BTW, MEPS is the military's medical processing that all future soldiers have to go through before they can be accepted into the military. Here was the process: Introduction, eye/vision test, hearing test, drug test, blood test, and underwear olympics. Everything is pretty self-explanatory besides the underwear olympics...in short, they test our joints. A group of 9 girls went into a room, stripped down to our underwear and did a whole bunch of arm/leg/body movements. The whole process was a lot of hurry up and wait. We went quickly through each station but then waited a while to start the next.

I was finished by 1030 and waited the next 5 hours for my bus to arrive to take me home. I liked it because it gave me the opportunity to meet a lot of new, fun people. I'm looking forward even more to joining the military community/family now! This upcoming Friday I have my OCS board selection. I'll be going back up to Kansas City and meeting with the OCS board. They're ask me a whole lot of questions then decide if I should be an Army officer. I feel fairly confident about it :-)

APFT #1

Alright I expected to be ashamed of my first APFT score but...they actually were pretty good :-)

Push-Ups: 28
Sit-Ups: 62
2 Mile Run: 14:05

I scored a 252 out of 300. I've been told that if I can score 260 before going to basic then basic and OCS should be no problem. Although my run is good, when I'm in OCS I will be doing 4 and 5 mile runs so right now my focus is on extending my running distance.