Day 15

Well today ended our 3rd week here. It is hard to believe that it has been 3 weeks already. Today we got out at about 1330 so it was nice to have a little earlier day so I was able to make it around to some offices here on base and get done some paper work that I had been unable finish. We started out watching a video on sexual harassment/assault and then had a lecture by the same for another hour plus. After that we had a presentation on combative training that we will get to do along with meeting our instructor and watching some videos on what we will be learning. After that lecture we sat through another talk going over our ASU's (which we have already sat through) and what they expect when we have our company ASU inspection. That pretty much summed up our day, a lot of sitting and listening. Thankfully we have a long weekend and then next week should be some fun. We will have a lot more lectures, but thankfully they should be more targeted toward what we will practice in the field. Today I am going to put in a few extra pictures of our M16 familiarization

This was part of our training to learn to sight in and group our
shots along with learning the correct sight picture and
reproducing it over and over.

View with the shooters looking at their markers.

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Day 14

Well today was another fairly good day. We reported to CIF for accountability this morning and then the pre-BOLC group was released till lunch time. After lunch we met back up in the AMEDD building and had a presentation from the LTC who is over our training program. He briefed us on his mission and vision for what he wants us to get, learn and be able to do when we leave his program. After that we had another presentation from a Major who is our class advisor. He went over a lot of the same things that we have been hearing this week and the other weeks we have been here. Finally, we got to split up and meeting our individual platoon military and civilian cadre. Our civilian cadre is great, he is a former Airborne, Ranger and SF guy who is a retired Master Sergeant (E8) (which is almost as high as you can go as an enlisted individual.) He seems to really know his stuff and wants to teach us what we need to know and make sure that we can succeed in our jobs. Maybe one of the best things is that he does not want to waste our time with information that we don't really need to know so he told us he plans on keeping his information very focused. Along with that though he made sure to stress though, that we really need to KNOW the information that he does teach us. Overall, it seems like our group is really good and that we should be able to learn and accomplish a lot. Tomorrow is suppose to be a half day (well at least off around noon.) We have to report at 0600 and they told us not to expect off till 1300 so that is 7 hours anyway, but at least it won't be a late day. Tomorrow I am planning on posting some more pictures of our time here. Hope you enjoy.

Day 13

Well today is going to be another short post, because all we did today was sit through more lectures. Today they talked to us about the Inspector General, the Chaplain, Suicide Prevention, Sexual Assaults and Heat Illnesses. Overall very mind stimulating talks (sarcasm meant.) Thankfully we were able to get out a little bit early today so that was nice. Tomorrow should be another short day, hopefully, because we are suppose to be meeting for first formation and then our new BOLC members must collect all of their field gear from CIF (I am not sure what that stands for) so we get to leave after first formation and then show up sometime again near lunch. Then I suppose we will probably have a few more lectures in the afternoon, but I don't know what they will be about. Thankfully we have had a little more free time this week so we can all really focus on getting ready for our first official APFT test next week. So I will sign off for now until tomorrow!!!

Day 12

 

Well today was a pretty slow day, but the hammer has fallen. Through our pre-BOLC all of our cadre were pretty laid back if we had our proper TPU's in order. (Time, Place and Uniforms) Well we had our first formation with our full BOLC class this morning and our time to be there was 0745 with formation being called at 0800. Well unfortunately there were quite a few new BOLC students who are staying off base and were very late to our formation, so we were then promptly chewed out for our lack of personal disciple to be on time. We also now have to be at formation a hour earlier tomorrow because we can't be "trusted" to be there on time. They also told us we would start getting negative counseling if we were late, so I we be getting to formation now even earlier. Anyway, outside of that we pretty much just sat through talks all day and tomorrow is suppose to be more of the same. So, I will put more pictures of last week up, today I am going to post more pictures of our ruck march. The Army has 7 values that it wants in its leaders (meaning officers) so some of the pictures are from those 7 values, unfortunately 1 is missing which is Selfless Service. The 7 Leadership Values are: Duty, Loyalty, Respect, Selfless Service, Personal Courage, Honor and Integrity. 

This is the first of the leadership signs.

This is a view from the front looking back.





This is our medic, he is one of our Sgt's and our
pt instructor.



This is us stretching out as a platoon prior to leaving for our
ruck march.





This is looking forward from the back of the
formation. I am in the orange on the Left
running to the front to relieve the front
 guards.



This is us finishing up our ruck march at the Leadership
Reaction Course.

 

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Day 11

Well today is going to be a short post because there was not much on the schedule for today. We had our first formation at 0745 and were then promptly send back to the hotel and told to be back for final formation at 1600. The reason for this was because the full long BOLC course started today and the rest of our company was in processing today. The nice part about having it off was that we could get done some of the things that we needed to finish, including getting to work out 2 times. When we showed up at 1600 we got into formation for one last time as pre-BOLC Class 137. Then we headed into the auditorium to meet the rest of our company. Once we got into the auditorium the called out all of our names and our new platoon that we would be in. We then headed outside to get into our platoon and meet our new squad members. I am now in the 3rd of 6 platoons and in squad 4 of my platoon of BOLC 137. On a side note it rained for the first time since I have been here in Texas, unfortunately it rained the whole time while we were outside getting into our new platoons, so that was a lot of fun! It looks like the rest of the week will be death by power point as and our schedule has been rearranged so that our first APFT will be next week instead of this week. Anyway since today and the rest of the week will probably be short posts I will put in some more pictures from last week, since I could not fit them all into my week recap post. Today I will post some pictures from the Leadership Reaction Course so that you can see some of the scenarios that we had, not all of them are my squad so you might not always see me in them. Hope you enjoy!

This one you had to go up and over the wall, down
the other side and then onto the chains and make
your way across to the other side without touching
anything except for the chains. (No part of the poles)

On this scenario we had to get from one side to the other without
touching the ground because of a minefield or the poles.
So basically you had put the wood up onto the poles and
walk across as they swayed. The most challenging part of all
 of these is that you had to take all your supplies with you
to the end.

This is the only one we didn't complete (but no group did)
You had to just go across three islands but the boards were not
long enough so you had to tie them with a short piece of rope and
use your belt. This one was mainly hard just because of the time
limit.

This is the same challenge but this is actually my
squad. We didn't get everyone over but we got
one person and the supplies that we needed.



This one you had to move everyone across plus supplies
the most difficult part was walking along the pipes and then
jumping onto and walking across the balance beam in the
middle then it was basically the same thing on the other
side. Once again the hardest part was bringing the supplies
with you because these pipes were heavy.

For this challenge you had to get your whole squad
across the parallel bars. Overall this one was not
to bad but there were a few ways you could do it.
If you see the wood in the back ground there were a
special order they would fit on the bars because they
were not quite parallel but started wider and then
narrowed slightly, but for time it was pretty
much faster to just scoot across.

This was the timed event. You had to go up one side
keep a low profile at the time (because of snipers) and then
scale down the other side. You could not touch the ground
or slide down the sides and you had to take a 55 gal. drum
up one side and down the other. Overall not bad though.

This one was challenging because they told us you
could not go around, under, touch the red or touch
the top of the pipes. You could also not put any
equipment underneath the bars. Basically what you could
do was put the wood on top of the pipes and then walk
across and jump down to the other side.



This was our squads first challenge. You had to go
up and over without touching the ground between the wood
(mine fields) or touch the chain-link part of the fence (electrified)
All you had to do was lay the ladder over the top, use the 2
pipes under the top of the ladder, slide down the pipes plant
the explosives by the door and then get back over taking everything
with you.

Week 2 Recap

Well we have finished our 2nd week out here at Fort Sam Houston and completed our pre-BOLC training. Our week started off with an early bus trip out to Camp Bullis for land navigation and field training. Here is a picture of us when we first got out to the camp. We are changing over Platoon leader, Platoon sergeant and squad leaders for the new week. I enjoyed getting out of the class room and being out in the field walking around for land navigation. The picture right below this one is me and my squad leader in the tent prior to our MRE breakfast and land navigation training. You can tell we are not all hot and sweaty yet! I also included a picture of us out on our land navigation. You can see the terrain and vegetation, there were a lot of little palm bushes out there along with a lot of short trees. Nothing was very tall but there was frequent patches of vegetation that made it more difficult to get a long sight picture. It seemed like we were doing constant short walks. (Which might help you be more accurate anyways.) Tuesday we got to do our M16 training which was not anything to new but it was still fun to get out and work with some weapons. Wednesday we were suppose to get into do our M9 training but because of a gas leak and the need to get our military I.D's we were all not able to do our M9 training. Thursday we were up bright and early to head out to Camp Bullis again. They dropped us out in the middle of nowhere for our 4+ mile ruck march. When we finished our march we were at the Leadership Reaction Course. There we competed as squads over 8 different challenges. My squad was able to win and finish the challenge with the fastest time. Below is the picture of our squad when we were on the bus on our way back from Camp Bullis after our victory. On Friday we had our ASU inspection and cumulative final of the pre-BOLC training. I was able to pass the inspection and test with flying colors. Our class overall got great reviews from our leadership, which was nice to hear, with us all being new and being exposed to this for the first time. Saturday we went out as a platoon and got some good Texas BBQ. I really like BBQ and that was one thing I had been wanting to get so it was good to finally get some. The place was called The Big Bib, it is a little local restaurant. We took a picture as a group outside but I do not have that yet, but I will be sure to post it when I get it. Next week should hopefully be a good week. We will be merging with the rest of BOLC class 137 so the first few days of the week should be pretty easy while they in process. After that it will definitely pick up because we will have a lot to learn over the next few weeks while we are here.

Day 10

Well today ended my 2nd week here and marked the end of my pre-BOLC training. The rest of class 137 will get here on Sunday and we will be at full strength for the full course on Monday. Today we started off with our ASU (Army Service Uniform) inspection. We had a Captain come in who did not know our class perform our inspection. He went through with his ruler and measured our pins making sure they were placed at the correct distances and aligned correctly. He would also ask us specific measurements to see if we knew what they needed to be. He also inspected our gig lines, which is the line men's shirt, zipper on pants and the belt must be just to the left on that line. Thankfully, all my pins were placed correctly and I passed with flying colors! I was happy that I had lined it all up and had did not have things that needed to be corrected. After the ASU inspection we got to change back into our ACU's and get ready for our cumulative final.  Overall the test was not very hard. It had 50 questions and we had we had 50 minutes to complete it. Overall, it was very straight forward and stuck pretty closely with our notes. Next week should be a good week we will be joined by the prior duty members, we will have our first official APFT next week as well. All of our instructors seemed really impressed with how much our class had learned and how well we performed on all of our given tasks. Tomorrow I will post some pictures from recapping this last week for everyone to see. Tonight we went to a local burger place called Sam's. On top of the bun they would take and sear their name Sam's onto the bun. It was really good their burgers are huge and you could get fries, onion rings or tater tots with your burger. I got tater tots to go with my burger and they were really good. They had a really huge, good looking chicken burger to that I think I will be trying on our next visit. Tomorrow the plan is to go get some Texas BBQ and to see how good it really is here.

Sam's Burger Place

Day 9

Cooling down and getting to eat our MRE's
after the road march.

Well today was a good day overall. We started out bright and early to Camp Bullis where they dropped us off in the middle of nowhere at dawn and we had our 4+ mile round march with all of our gear. I was selected as one of four road guards. I was at the rear of the column and my job was, once the front guards posted at crossroads, myself and the other rear column road guard would sprint to the front and relieve them so that they could move back to the front of the column and we would stand and fall back into the rear of the column once it got to us. This was a fun job for me and made the march much more interesting because I did not have to just march but sprint some to. (It also made for more exercise, which is never a bad thing.) The road march ended at the Leadership Challenge Course. When we got there we fell into formation did some stretching, hydrated and then got an MRE to eat for breakfast. Overall mine was not to bad and I kept some of the finger foods to have as a snack later in the day. After we ate they gave a mandatory foot care time where we had to take off our socks and boots and powder and put on new socks. Once all that finished and the rest of our cadre showed up we moved to the Leadership Challenge Course. It was basically a lot of obstacle courses that we were given a scenario and an objective and had to work together to complete the little challenge. We competed against each other as squads and had 15 min. to complete each challenge, overall we had 8 different challenge stations that we had to complete and one challenge was going to be selected to compare all the squads to and see who had the better time. Out of all 8 challenges we completed all of them but one and the cadre said we got more people through then any other squad. Our last challenge ended up being the timed one that we would be compared to the other squads with and I am happy to say that we ended up winning!!! We had the fastest time by 2+ minutes and we pretty happy as a squad that we won. Especially since pretty much everyone here seems pretty competitive and motivated. Overall the Leadership Challenge Course took us just over 3 hours to complete and then we moved back onto the bus for our ride to Fort Sam Houston. Tomorrow will be the last day of our Pre-BOLC class and then we will be joined by all the other BOLC students for the long course. Tomorrow we have pt. in the morning and then our ASU Class A uniform inspection and then a test to overall the information we have covered over the past 2 weeks, plus information we haven't. The good news is that hopefully we should be done rather early tomorrow and get a good jump on the weekend.

Part of the Leadership Challenge Course, there
were over 17 total challenges but we only did
8 of them.

This was the challenge obstacle that was timed
you had a barrel that you had to get up and over
along with the rest of your squad and you were
not allowed to slide down either side and there
were "mine fields" at the bottom.

Day 8

Today will be a short blog because we did not get to do much today. This morning we started out with pt. bright and early. We actually went on our first road run as a platoon and did some cadence songs as we ran. Afterwards we met to begin our M9 training at the EST 2000. After some quick instructions on how to hold and operate the weapon we started to get split up by groups and prioritized by who needed to go get military cards today. Because I was one that needed a card I got picked to go in an early group so we headed into the building to start. Well no sooner had we got into the building but some came in and said we need to evacuate because the workers outside and struck a gas line and there was a leak. So we headed outside and formed up about 2 blocks away. When we got into formation the gas smell was still very strong so we were instructed to head back to the hotel and get everything that we would need to get issued our I.D. cards and then we were released for lunch. After lunch I spent the next few hours waiting in line to get an I.D. card and then we had to head to the military clothing store to pick up our ASU (Army Service Uniforms.) Finally, we headed to the DIFAC (Dining Facility) and then back to the hotel to meet up as squads and begin to get all of our hardware onto our ASU jackets, because we have an inspection on Friday. Hopefully tomorrow will be a better day. We are heading out to Camp Bullis for land navigation, we have a 4 mile ruck with all of our gear and then we are doing an obstacle course/leadership challenge, so all of that should be pretty fun, challenging and exhausting.

Day 6 Week 2

My breakfast MRE of chicken fajitas.

Me in all my field gear.

Me in my field gear at the end of the day.

Well today we started our 2nd week of our BOLC training with a trip out to Camp Bullis. We loaded onto the bus at 0530 and got to our FOB (Forward Operating Base) at Camp Bullis right after 0615. When we got off the bus we got into a tent and they brought around MRE's (Meal Ready to Eat) and we each had to take 2 so we could have one for lunch and one for breakfast. After breakfast we went just out side the FOB to the 100 meter range and walked it at our normal pace a few times to find our pace at 100 meters. After we got that we went to an uneven 100 meter range and walked that to get our pace over 100 meters of uneven terrain. Finally, we averaged our even and uneven terrain pace counts to get our 100 meter pace count so that we would be able to count our steps and to know our distance traveled during our land navigation practice. After we got our pace count we headed over to a covered area which had a lot of posts with azimuths written on them and we checked to make sure our compass was accurate. After got our pace count we went back into the tent and were given 8 points that we had to plot on the grid/map and then get magnetic azimuths and distances between points and we were then ready to go out to the land navigation course! We were split up into 3 groups/squads and introduced to our cadre who we orient us to the map and are starting point. All of our points were fairly close together, they ranged from 150 meters to 600 meters. We started at our first point and shot a magnetic azimuth, lined it up with an object in the distance and then started off counting our paces as we moved toward the point we had marked. Once we got there we would shoot another magnetic azimuth, pick another point and count our paces. This was repeated until we made it to our point. At the point we would check our 8 digit grid point, the marker had a unique punch that we marked on our card and then we would right down alphanumeric code on the marker and we would be ready to head off to the next point once the rest of our squad got there. This continued as we crossed and climbed one of the hills in the area. The fourth point, which was a turn around point was up at the top of the hill. At that point we refilled our canteens our cadre pointed out some distinguishing points on the map that we could now see with our height advantage and then we started to head back to the last 4 points. One thing that was interesting was while we were out doing all this the class that is ahead of us was out in the feeling doing all of there live exercises. It was cool because we could hear gunfire in the distance as they came under enemy contact and we could see the Blackhawk medevac helicopter make continual rounds bringing people back and forth. When we were near the FOB the helicopter would land right outside the base and it was close enough that we would need to hold onto our caps and we would get covered in dust. I kept thinking that my boys would love to be that close to a helicopter and see it coming and going. Once we made it back to the FOB we ate our second MRE and then headed out to practice some dress and ceremony until our bus arrived to take us back to Fort Sam Houston. Overall it was a fun day and it was good to get out of the classroom and into the field to learn some new skills and put them to use. Tomorrow we get to do M16 training all day so that should be fun and then I think we will be back out at Camp Bullis.
 

This is the tent were we ate and met up.



Week 1 Recap

Well I had not planned on posting any over the weekend but I was going through some of my pictures from my first week at BOLC (Basic Officer Leadership Course) so I thought I would put them up so everyone could see them. The first picture to the left her is the Army AMEDD (Army Medical Department) badge that we will wear on our uniform while we are here in training. The next picture on the right is my platoon in formation during our first week waiting for our morning pt session to begin. Right below is

 our platoon out in the field about to have our MOLLE vest and helmet/uniform inspection.












This one is my squad, Squad 1, front and center waiting for our inspection.












This next one is LTC (Lieutenant Commander) Innanen giving our platoon a speech and introducing us to BOLC. He talked to us about our career's, the Army and how the Army medical profession was improving. LTC Innanen was very nice and fairly informal with us. He gave us very good advice about career management.

 This picture is another class room shot. This is LTC Smith the Commander of our 137th Medical Battalion welcoming us to BOLC. She was very nice (though much more formal then LTC Innanen) she talked about our BOLC training and how AMEDD has been changing since she has been there. She also talked about her vision for AMEDD and then Army medical field as a whole.





These last 3 pictures are from this weekend when we went out as a platoon for our first weekend here in San Antonio. This first one is of the San Antonio river walk. They decorated under one of the overpasses by hanging these fish up. The fish supposedly glowed and changed colors once the sun went day. There was also a large crowd on some grass banks around this area. Apparently they have a lot of bats that live underneath the overpass that come out in the evening. This reminded me of Gainesville as they had 2 bat houses there which housed over 300,000 bats and we would go frequently to watch them leave their home.

 This next picture is down by the river walk as well. They had built walks on either side of the river (it was more like a canal) and on the opposite side you can see they had build a little feature which had a water fall and a walkway up under it.








This last picture is one of a bus stop right up off the river walk from the last two pictures. I thought it was pretty cool how they made it look like a tree and they had plenty of seating underneath it to keep people out of the rain. All these designs were pretty cool and reminded me of sculptures done at theme parks (especially Animal Kingdom.)






Anyway, these are some pictures from my first week here at BOLC and I hope everyone enjoys them.

 

Day 5 Week One

Well I made it through the first week! Today was another good day. We got up early for pt and our drill instructor did not show up so we were instructed to do some pushups, sit-ups and run. After pt we had our inspections of our helmets and MOLLE vest. (With all my equipment passing well.) Next we did some more D & C, which is Drill and Ceremony (read more marching.) Then we headed to class for more lecture, except today was land navigation! We learned about the three North's: true, magnetic and grid, along with the angle of inclination and looking at 4-6-8-10 grid coordinates and home to find and understand 4-6-8 digit coordinates with 8 digits getting you down to within 10 meters of the position you are finding. We also learned how to convert between magnetic and grid north and finding and reading an azimuth, reverse azimuth and triangulating a position. Along with how to actually hold and read the compass to get an accurate position of travel. We were then given homework for the weekend with questions which basically makes us put everything we have learned to use. That about finished up our day, at the very end we had the AMEDD Commander who is a LTC come in and talk to us about her mission and vision for the AMEDD department while she is here. Overall, it was a pretty good week, very busy but I definitely learned a lot and feel a lot more comfortable in the Army uniform. (Though I still have a long way to go.) I am looking forward to this upcoming week when we will get to go out to Camp Bullis and do land navigation and our weapons training. It is suppose to be 105 degrees + every day so and we will be in our ACU's and combat gear so I have started working on hydrating myself so I won't have any issues on that front. Well I hope everyone has a good weekend, I am going to enjoy my first weekend off and I look forward to starting my second week and getting another day closer to the end!

Day 4

Well today went pretty much the same as our last few days, early mornings followed by long days in the classroom. Our pt session this morning was pretty easy our instructor just took us through the Army's new warm up program explained how our up coming pt sessions would be and then split us up into running groups depending on our times from the run. (I am in the Alpha group! Which might now be a good thing.) After pt we went and got dressed in our ACU's and then went to the parade field for inspection. Thankfully I passed inspection without having any issues with me or my uniform. (I had spent time the evening before going over my uniform with scissors and a lighter making sure all the loose strings were off of my uniform.) After inspection we spent some time out in the sun on the parade ground practicing formation marching and turning back and forth till our instructors felt like we had improved enough for the day. Next we just went to the classroom and had lectures on the Army military weapons, military organization and leadership and career management. All of the lectures were interesting but they started getting long towards the end. After all of our classes we had to get together in our squads and put our helmets and MOLLE vests together and make sure to tape and tighten up all the loose lines so there would be nothing to snag.  Tomorrow should be a good day we have pt in the morning but then most of the day is land navigation. (I know it was suppose to be earlier in the weak but they moved the schedule around and put it into Friday's schedule.) The nice thing is we will learn it and they are going to give us homework on it to practice over the weekend and then we get to go out to the field on Monday and practice what we learned! I also believe we will get to start weapons training some next week which should be fun. Well that is about it for today. Hope everyone enjoys and gets something from it.

Day 3 Shaving

Well today was another long day it started at 0400 out at the track for the diagnostic physical fitness test. I was a little nervous just because I had never taken an even un official PT test with official counters, however, everything went well and I scored really well and would have easily passed a regular APFT. After that we had to move quickly to eat and shower before we had to meet to pick up all of our field gear. We spent a few hours outside in the sun in our ACU's (which we wore for the first time today) going through and checking all of our field gear and packing it away in our duffel bag. Once we had everything packed away we went back to the classroom and learned about wearing our formal heading gear the beret. I will have to say I never thought there would be so required to shape and fit the beret. The most interesting part of prepping the beret for wear is shaving it over and over till it is completely smooth. After we were taught the technique for shaving we spend the rest of the day including some evening time shaving and shaving the inside and especially the outside of the beret. Our day finally ended (after going about a hour overtime again) going over stationary marching techniques and getting better with our right and left turns. Tomorrow should be another fun day we have to be up bright and early for our first day of pt. Most of our classmates seem nervous about it but I am personally looking forward to it because I think it should be a good, fun challenge. (Hopefully)

Day 2

Well today is going to be a short post because I need to be in bed for an early rise tomorrow. Today was just a lot of sitting in classroom and learning more of the Army's values, customs and traditions. Along with leadership training and meeting more of our class leadership (which I feel like I need to see in an organizational tree to understand where they all fit in!) Our class run 1.5 hrs. over the scheduled end time and we still didn't make it through our entire schedule! Thankfully they let us go so we were able to make it to the military clothing store here on post and get fitted for our ASU's. (Dress Blues) Unfortunately by the time we got fitted and paid for everything the food hall was closed so dinner was on our own tonight. Anyway hopefully tomorrow will be a good time, we are picking up all of our field gear and we will start learning land navigation. (That is if we stay on schedule!)

Day 1 Train to Save

Well we started out the day meeting our commanding officer and hearing his personal rules for our class and his policies. Following that we took the Oath of Office (I have included a picture of my fellow Active Duty Officers who took the Oath with me.) Following that we basically filled out paper work for the rest of the morning, followed by a quick lesson on how to march information before we marched down for lunch. In the afternoon we met the chaplain and learned more about Army traditions and customs. This included morning reveille (0530) and evening retreat (1730), how to salute, including the phrase of the day or the post phrase which for us is "Train to Save" because they train all the Army medics here as well. We also learned who to salute along with handling situations in which people don't salute when they are suppose to. That was pretty much our first day, not to exciting but it should continue to get better. On a side note I did a return a Go Gators to an enlisted soldier when I went to dinner in my civilian clothes with a Gator shirt on.