A Little Bit Of PT Goes A Long Way...



PT? Fun? Surely you jest...

 For those of you I didn't hound via Facebook or text, this morning was my first PT session with my OSO and fellow Officer Candidates. For those unfamiliar with the Marine Corps or the military in general, PT = Physical Training. Like many words in the military vocabulary, PT can be both a noun or verb. In any event, we all met at a park a couple miles east of FAU at 4:45AM and PTed for roughly an hour. Personally, I had been looking at it a little apprehensively because of the unknown. Really the only guarantee was that it was going to be hard, and it certainly didn't disappoint in that regard. We had all sorts of fun running, doing pull-ups, and completing an exercise circuit on the beach, with more running. As hard as the PT was, it was also a lot more fun that I would've expected.

There's a certain amount of group camaraderie that goes with a bunch of Officer Candidates working out together. Sure, the work is hard and it does suck.. but having people suffer through it with you makes a huge difference. It also fosters competition between the group as well as encouragement and motivation. It's much easier to finish a workout when you've got ten other candidates pushing you towards the finish line.

Captain Pages made it pretty clear that first time attendees really needed to focus on finishing the workout. It's pretty hard stuff, but it'll come with practice. Thankfully, I held my own. Definitely wasn't the worst there but also a long way from being at the top of the group. Some of these candidates have been going balls to the wall for five or six months, so it's going to take some work to catch up. And trust me, I have a lot of catching up to do.

Captain Pages and a few Lieutenants are on campus this week recruiting the FAU area so I was able to see them later in the day and finish filling out my application to be in the Marine Officer Program. From what I understand, the program is pretty much just the applicant pool and training program for people who are trying to get selected for OCS. With that completed, I can focus on my PFT score, getting my recommendation letters squared away, and start studying for the ASTB.

As for what's on the horizon: PT, PT, and more PT. We only meet formally as a group once a week on Wednesday, but the other candidates get together at other times to do additonal PT. This is very necessary because once a week really won't cut it for preparing for OCS. Aside from that, I've also got my own routine that I've been working on to keep me busy. Once I get my weight down to 185lbs (seven more pounds to go) I can get physically qualified at MEPS (Military Entrance Processing Command) and move further along with my selection package for OCS.

I still need to formally speak with the Navy and Army when I get the chance. The Navy's tough to arrange a meeting with because their office is a pretty far distance from me and I have difficulty going during the week with my class schedule. I'll hopefully find some time in the next couple of weeks to schedule an appointment and speak to someone.

As for the Army, I've been having a pretty good deal of trouble with their recruiting process. It's disjointed at best. From their website I wasn't exactly clear on who I needed to speak to for an officer program so I requested more information. This put me in contact with a civilian contractor that had me fill out and return a questionnaire of pre-qualifying questions. She informed me that my local recruiting command would contact me in the next couple of days. After about a week she checked in to see if I had been contacted, which I hadn't, so she put me in touch with the recruiter that I should speak to. We've exchanged a couple of emails, but thus far he's been pretty slow to respond and hasn't really answered many of my questions. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to clear this up in the next week or so, but for right now the Army is looking more and more like a last resort to the Marines and Navy. As well as things are going with the Marine Corps, I'm pretty tempted to keep doing that as long as I'm still getting the situation that I want.