Utilizing the Woodline

My weekend break was relaxing. It was fragmented, but still relaxing. Everyone reported in on time yesterday. I have a great class who seems to avoid trouble. That's fantastic, considering that OCS history has shown that staying out of trouble during pass periods can be difficult. After reporting back in, we received an alternate schedule for the week. We will do the Bolton obstacle course once again. Since going in the first week, I have had nothing but nightmares about this course. Climbing to 50 feet into the air and doing insane things that can lead to a drop to your death, getting bruised, having several people dropped from the course because they broke bones, etc. It's a nightmare, and we get to do it again.

Today we spent the day in the field doing a terrain analysis and defense planning. I was amazed at how many people screwed it up. Doing a map and a terrain recon, there was really only one possible avenue of approach the enemy could take. Everyone seemed to pick all avenues but that one except a guy in our platoon who used to be a Navy corpsman. This baffled me. How could a former Navy guy figure this out ahead of all the infantry guys. Of course, I did too, but oh well. People had this enemy force doing flanking movements across open ground in front of artillery and everything. Strange stuff.

The day was long. Mainly because the terrain walk was kind of repetitive. Once you see one layer of shrubs, you've seen them all. As an analysis for a first time Army person goes though, it went very well. I have to remember that I've done this kind of stuff before and kind of push that aside.

Tomorrow is a 5 mile AGR. I do not fear it like I feared the 4 mile from last week. It seems that runs aren't as big of a problem for me right now. Oh yeah, and once this week is over, I will fly home for exodus!!!!!

BOC Sharp