Officer Basic Leadership Course

I am now in San Antonio, Texas (Boo, I know!) for my Army Officer Basic Leadership Course (OBLC) at Fort Sam Houston. I arrived on the 10th of June and I will get back on the 21st of July. As of today, I have three weeks left! I have learned a great deal thus far. It's crazy being thrown into the Army life of an officer, having all the enlisted soldiers saluting you all the time, and trying to recognize all the customs and courtesies in the military. The first couple weeks consisted of a great deal of in-processing and paperwork, and with 300 medical, dental, vet and PA officers, that translates into a lot of sitting around. We haven't done near as much Physical Training (PT) as I thought, but I have been running daily with Ken, a former Army Ranger who is also going to be a 2nd year at AZCOM. That has been good for me. As far as our PT test, I did better than most with the 2 mile, 2 minute push-up and 2 minute sit-up tests, especially considering the amount of time (or lack thereof) I had from the end of school to my report date. I wanted to spend as much time as I could with Meghan and Braylei before I left so my workout time was reduced to before either woke up each morning!

We do a lot of classroom didactic study, as that has taken up most of our time thus far. However, we just spent a week and a half out in the field. There is a large military reservation on the other side of San Antonio that simulates what is like to be in a FOB (forward operating base). We had no showers (yuck!) or plumbing (go port-a-potties!), but there was water so we could shave, brush our teeth and wash our faces. We also had air conditioned tents, so that was nice. There were probably 30 of us per tent, so it was pretty large. The cots weren't horribly uncomfortable, and we were very blessed with cloudy/rainy weather the whole time so it wasn't too hot. While there, we did a lot of training, much of which was very new to me. We shot with a M-16 rifle, an M-9 handgun, conducted day and night land navigation, mounted (vehicle) land navigation, and urban tactical training (clearing houses and buildings). I did really well, getting perfect marks in all my land navigation training, and qualifying as a marksman with both the M-9 and M-16! I told Meghan that I'm becoming a real man out here! We had to return to Ft. Sam a day early due to heavy rainfall and flooding, but we are going back for two more days Monday, then we will have another full week after that which will all be medical related. We will be in charge of setting up a combat support hospital, transferring combat casualties (injured soldiers) to level 1 (battalion aid station) to higher levels. It has been a very good experience for me, but I will be happy to return back home! I will add pictures once I get back and develop the pics from my disposable camera.