Well, ladies and gents, I have to again apologize for my lack of updates. Between the Marine Officer Program and school, things have been a little hectic - but that's not a very good excuse. It's far better to have multiple posts per month to demonstrate a progression through the program, but alas, we'll just have to play catch up for now.
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| Truly, I am |
In any event, March has been a busy month. For my medical clearance I've had to sign up for the DODMETS program in stead of going to MEPS. The big difference is under DODMETS I schedule my own appointments at doctors approved by the military. Especially nice since I don't have to pay for it. I'll be doing my scheduling today for hopefully next week, after mini-OCS. What's mini-OCS, you ask?
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| You'll be sorry you asked |
Mini-OCS is a fun-filled event that happens at selection offices all around the country in April and May. The general idea is to get a bunch of prospective OCS candidates for the coming summer classes together away from civilization for a few days and terrorize the shit out of them. In essence, it's meant to mimic the disorientation and the demanding environment of OCS, especially the "pick-up" from your staff of Sergeant Instructors. In our case, the Miami OSO is getting bused up to Orlando this Thursday to spend the weekend with the Orlando OSO and staff until Sunday. From what I've been told, there's a weigh-in, PFT, lots of PT, drill, a hike, classroom instruction from trained candidates, and probably more PT. We'll also be living off of MRE (Meals-Ready-to-Eat) and sleeping in tents. I don't know about y'all, but I'm stoked!
In all seriousness, it will definitely suck at times. As will OCS. But this is also an excellent opportunity to experience some of the rigors of OCS while still having the ability to come home at the end of the weekend and prepare further. It'll be a great learning experience about the process as well as how I'll react in a similarly stressful environment to OCS.
PT, for the most part, has been going well. I've gotten reasonably fast, believe it or not (I still don't). After running my first PFT at 25:12, my time dropped to 21:00 in mid-March and even lower to 19:55 last week. My target run was always under twenty minutes, but now I think I should even be able to lower my time to under 19:00 before OCS. We'll certainly see. Pull-ups and crunches are still a work in progress. Crunches are mainly because I haven't been doing them consistently. That falls completely on me. Pull-ups are a little trickier. I think one of the reasons they're slacking is because I've been working at the behest of the OSO to cut weight. I've succeeded there, but I feel like I've definitely lost a little strength in the process. The good news is they're improving again, so hopefully in another couple weeks I'll be close to a more competitive PFT score.
As far as selection (and my PFT), I need my PFT score to more or less be squared away by April 15. That is well within the realm of possibility if I can max out my crunches (shouldn't be a problem) and get to fifteen pull-ups. Right now I'm at ten. That will put my score in the 260's, which is about average for PLC Jrs Candidates this summer. I would still fortunately have time to keep improving before shipping out in either May (1st increment of PLC Jrs) or July (2nd increment). What's on the agenda in the coming weeks? Pull-ups, pull-ups, pull-ups.
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| "Fuuuuuuuck" |
My application paper-works in fortunately just about finished and also needs to be ready by the April 15 deadline. That shouldn't be a problem, however, these things always seem to take longer than they should so I'm trying to get as much finished this week as possible. On a side note: we also have a gear list of things to pick-up for mini-OCS, including boots and PT gear. I was running in the boots a couple of weeks ago to break them in and did a pretty good job blistering up my feet. That was expected, although there is a pretty funny picture to go with it:
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| Mmmmm, tasty! |
The only other thing I can think of is my recent promotion to Candidate Fire Team Leader. That's really not a big deal, but more designed to put us in leadership roles to prepare for that aspect of OCS. It's nice, but being in charge of three other people is definitely a tad harder than the alternative, so it's good to get used to it now.
In any event, I promise I'll update more frequently and certainly shortly after I get back from mini-OCS this Sunday. In the mean time, take care.
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