August 6, 2013

Good Luck & Future Hand Salute (after you complete OCS and get your bars)!

As my best friend's Dad told me before we headed out to Boot Camp..."Never be first, never be last, and never volunteer!"

Have fun in the GA heat in August...

Secretariata wrote: As my best friend's Dad told me before we headed out to Boot Camp..."Never be first, never be last, and never volunteer!"

On volunteering ... that was good advice for draftee Private Snuffy, intent on doing one hitch in nametag defilade and heading back to the block. Do volunteer for schools and interesting assignments that will differentiate you and/or add to your usefulness, such as Airborne, Air Assault, Ranger, etc. As far as duties in school, remember: If they don't get volunteers, someone will be volunteered.

Secretariata wrote: Have fun in the GA heat in August...

Loads of fun! I went through Airborne School in the summer of 1980 ... in fatigues and combat boots for PT (no sissy "running shoes" or gym shorts back then), "saluting" the wet bulb heat index announcements with pushups ...

Listen to your NCO's, warrant officers, and basically everyone. But keep your filters in place. Trust, but verify. I've seen lieutenants screwed over royally by the NCO's and WO/CWO's they should have been able to trust. And there are folks of all (former) ranks doing the "long course" at Fort Leavenworth.

One more piece of advice: Keep a copy of every set of orders, pay stub, hand receipt, award, etc that you are ever given. Mail a copy to someone who can keep a duplicate file. You never know.

Good luck. I am at 17 years and counting and for me it has been a big pain in the butt and at the same time one of the best things I have ever done.

One thing that helped me in Basic was to think of all the people that have made it through before me, if they can do it so can I.

The thing that Dustoff said about being in the right place at the right time in the right uniform is SOOO true. Also what Slant said about keeping copies of EVERYTHING. The Army is a big machine and it will loose something of yours at some point, you can be out of luck if you can't come up with the documentation.

Really Basic was not as hard as I expected. Listen, do what you are told and don't take the DS yelling at you personally, its their job.

The main thing about training (basic, OCS, about any military school) is the DI's intentionally load you with stress and how you handle it will determine how well you do. That's the main reason for the yelling. Just keep telling yourself that there is an end date and it will be easier. Immediately after graduating, the same people that yelled and harassed you the day before will treat you with respect and as an equal.
US Army retired.

Well... I'm back.

Made it two and a half weeks into Basic with very little difficulty. Mistimed a grab for a monkey bar on the confidence course, broke my fifth metacarpal. Berkeley. Wouldn't let me keep training, so I sat around watching my classmates go ahead without me, and three weeks later, they sent me home for a month.

I go back October 13, hope to resume training by the first week of November.

In the meantime, I'll be dealing with my poor Beetle. Mrs InKansas decided to drive it through deep water on her way home from work, and it hasn't run right since.

All the advise was solid. Looking forward to getting back to training and earning the black beret.

Geeze man, tough break! (pun unintended)

on the bright side ... when you go back, you'll have perspective that the other recruits won't have ... the time you have already put in and the time you had to "relax" and reflect ... you should be able to put that to good use

good luck ... keep you head down

and keep running, a month can put you way behind on the physical side.

Thanks for your service.

That sucks about the break but it should heal with little/no long term issues.

Now the Beetle may be a different story... What year? My wife did the same in her '03 Turbo S and after many trips back to the dealer we ended up replacing almost every sensor in the intake system and there are a lot of them. Not cheap. One thing we learned afterwards is that you MAY be able to claim this on your insurance as they can code this as an impact and cover the repairs. May be worth it if the bills start to add up.

hobiercr wrote: Now the Beetle may be a different story... What year?

1972

Beetle turned out to be a combination of an exceptionally filthy air filter and a bad fuel injector. No problems now.

Doc took me out of the cast ten days ago. Very little pain now, but still kind of weak. I'm working on it.

Back to Basic tomorrow morning early. Don't know for sure yet when they'll start me over, as the doc said I won't be fully healed for at least another couple of weeks, possibly as long as 6 weeks. Its worth the wait. Going to be tough to leave (again), but the payoff is greater than staying at home.

Here we go again.