The Nightmare is over

The long dreaded nightmare that is SERE school is over. The one thing that I have been anxiously awaiting and dreading since I was accepted to flight school has come and gone. Cant say much about it except it probably ranks up there with the darkest time of my life. I'm home though and that's what counts.
Now I have aero-med and primary flight to look forward to. I thought that I was gonna have some time off but it looks like the bubble has disappeared and I am hopefully starting next weekend. Turn on the fire hose and let the information flow

While Brenna is away....

So JOPD is long gone and I'm in another bubble. This time I'm waiting for SERE to start. I was supposed to start way back at the end of April but got pushed back. We then decided to book Brenna a ticket out to Utah while I was supposed to go at the beginning of May. She headed out as scheduled and I got pushed back again.

So what you ask, have I been doing while she is gone. "Play?" you say, NO. I've been doing honey doe's the whole time. Brenna lined me up with a fine schedule of refurnishing our kitchen table along with finishing the dresser that she started a month ago. So here are some pictures of what I have done with the house since she has been gone.

This whole sanding the table and staining it is way more work than it sounds. I just wish someone had told me to use a sponge earlier.

Also since Brenna has been gone I have discovered shish kabobs. I had them 3 times last week and I bought more stuff to make them again this week. I cant wait.

JOPD

My first week of classes is over. JOPD! I have no idea what it stands for so don't ask. Pretty much it consisted of welcome classes that I got it WOCS, oh yes, and the infamous STD class complete with pictures. I definitely am not the same after that class. The highlight was Dunker training. I got to spend a day in the pool training to get out of a helicopter that had crashed into the water. Unfortunately the training got canceled midway through due to a thunderstorm. I've never been in an indoor pool that gets closed due to lightning. Unfortunately the designers of this place decided not to ground the pool and to place it in a metal building. The class was good. We had classes on water survival in the morning and after lunch we got into the pool and started off in a contraption that they strap you into a seat and put blacked out goggles on your. Then they turn you upside down and make you get out of the seat, work your way down the tunnel and work the latch open to get out. It was tons of fun. Unfortunately due to the weather we didn't get to get into the mock helicopter that they turn upside down. I will have to wait till after SERE school to finish Dunker training. Things are going smooth now and I'm glad to have started school.

The Bubble

I'm officially out of my first "bubble. We arrived around the middle of February to beautiful Fort Rucker, Alabama and I haven't had a thing to do up until last week. My schedule included waking up at 5:15 am so I could be at PT (Morning Workout) by 5:45. We either run a couple of miles or play Ultimate Frisbee. After PT I would go home for a couple of hours and return for morning formation at 10:00 am for about a half an hour. Once that was over I was all done for the day. Life was rough. Let me tell you. Oh yes, I was getting paid also. We got the house put together, kind of. and got our garden and flowers put in (I hope they survive). Mostly it was sitting around getting used to the new environment. So far I am loving Active Duty.

The longest 4 weeks of my life

I'm done with WOCS. It was long and painful. No, it wasn't hard and yes it was only 5 weeks long but it was boring and took forever. Don't get me wrong. I learned a lot but sitting in class for 8 hours a day and then having the remaining 6 hours of your day planned out with nothing interesting to do makes for really long days. I'll give you a quick run down of what the weeks held for me.
I couldn't have arrived at a better time. The first week is what we call Snowbird Phase. It is all about in-processing. Its not hard but your every move is scripted and watched by TAC Officers. I arrived over Christmas exodus so no one was there. They gave us a packet and told us to get everything finished before we classed up with the rest of the class. Each day we would spend an hour or so getting paperwork done and then we could go into town or watch TV or take a nap. It was the best time to do Snowbird phase ever.
WOCS is normally a 7 week course but since I have been to PLDC I only had to do 5 weeks. We classed up with a class that had already been there for 3 weeks. I can't remember what day we did it on but we went in the morning and did a physical fitness test (PT Test). After we passed it we marched over to see our new class. There were 8 of us and we were all older guys that had been in the army for a while. They put us with 75 young new guys and we decided to swallow our pride and let them show us the ropes. It made life pretty easy for us.
Our schedule was pretty much set. We woke up at 0530 and had 7 minutes to be dressed, beds made and formed up for first formation. It was crazy in the morning. After stretching we worked out for an hour from 0600 till 0700 and then had 15 minutes to get ready, clean the barraks and be downstairs for breakfast formation. After breakfast we went to class for 4 hours then lunch and back to class till dinner. After dinner we would either have another class or have study time. At night we would have one hour of personal time, one hour of barraks cleanup and one hour of study time before we were in bed ant 1045. The next day it would start all over again.
The field was fun. We did patrol operations, urban operations, and FOB operations. It was cold but fun. The week went by fast. I wished we could have spent the whole 4 weeks out there. The time would have flown by.
In the end we only lost two people from injuries and we all graduated the newest class of US Army Warrant Officers. It was a great feeling.
After graduation I checked in with housing and got our house signed for so when Brenna and I roll in on Feb. 11 we pick up our keys and go straight to our house. I'm anxious and a little nervous for what lies ahead but I'm sure its going to be fun and I cant wait.

I'm Here

I finally made it to the great state of Alabama. I don't have much time to write but i thought that I'd give everyone an update. I reported to meps on Monday morning at 0600 and was on a plane at 1500 (thats 300 p.m.). After a mechanical delay in Atlanta I arrived in Dothan around midnight. It was a long day. We drew linen and were shown to our temporary living quarters. The heat was stuck on. Someone was supposedly supposed to put in a work order to have it fixed before Christmas but never got around to it. My room was easily 90 degrees. I opened the window and slept with my head up to it. Luckily I was exhausted and it wasn't too hard to fall asleep.
This morning was a mess. They weren't prepared to have anyone check in and people are arriving from all over the country. Luckily I have talked to a bunch of the Officers here on the phone while doing the distance learning and they knew what was going on with me so I got in on everything first so they make sure that I get in a class on Monday.
Thats the short hand version of everything. Still running around like a chicken with my head cut off but it looks like I'll get into the class on monday if Brenna overnights a bunch of stuff to me.
Gotta go. I'll keep everyone posted.

On My Way

This is just a quick post. I finished my distance learning and am ready to go to Alabama. I hope I never have to read a pdf. file again. I took the first test and got an 84 percent and then went on to the second test. The rules state that you have 50 minutes to do the test. If you go over you fail. I finished the second test and just went back to review some of my answers. I got carried away and lost track of the time and finished at 51 minutes 25 seconds. I thought that I had failed but it wouldn't let me retake the test. Come to find out I had an hour to do it in and got a 96 percent. Now I'm ready to go to Alabama for the last 4 weeks of WOCS. Merry Christmas.