Day 19-20

Just wanted to do a quick post before we go out to the field for a couple of days. I will likely post again on Saturday.

Here is a quick summary of what we did the last two days.

Day 19:

We did our first height and weight today. I passed without needing to get taped. In the Army you have to maintain a certain weight that is based on your height. For me, as a male at my age I have to maintain a weight under 163 pounds. I was well under that today so I passed with flying colors.

Afterwards we had our first Command and Staff meeting which is a mock version of a meeting held at the battalion level between the Commander and his staff team. (S1= Personnel officer, S2 = Intelligence Officer, S3= Operations Officer, S4= Logistics, S6= Signal Information Technology, S9= Civil Affairs Officer, and Chaplain). They want us to get used to being in a staff shop so that we know what it is like being in a headquarters company. A chaplain is a staff officer so I need to get used to being on a staff team. Command and staff is where the staff shops present the statuses of their respective responsibilities for the commander. I was randomly picked to be S6 so I am responsible for the technology and computers our platoon uses. I enjoy the position cause I feel pretty useful when I am able to help people out with their computer problems.

Day 20:

Today was our first PT Test! I didn't do as good as I hoped I would but I am not upset with where I am. In fact, I still celebrated with Blue Bell Ice Cream at the end of the day. I got about a 254 out of 300. I am shooting for a 270 by the end of phase 1 and hopefully by the end of the summer I am at a 300. The rest of the day was pretty relaxed. We had a lesson on the different staff shops. We had a quick briefing on STX.

The next couple of days we will be in the field doing different "warrior task" trainings. I think it will be pretty fun. Land navigation is fun and time goes by fast when you are doing it. We will attend a couple of field services held by our cadre. The next day we will do some small unit tactics and movements and finally finish being out in the field with "NIC at Night" where we low crawl across a field while bullets fly over our head. Fun times. On Friday we are gonna do some Medical Life Saving Training which I am looking forward to because of how important that can be to a Chaplain in combat.

I want to get some good sleep tonight and finish packing my ruck. I likely won't be able to post until Saturday so please be praying for the next couple of days. I know these are going to be extremely long days! But the activities look like a lot of fun.