Training Week 1

It is July 4th and I am still alive! The last week has definitely been an interesting experience.

When I arrived at COT on Training day 0 and first walked up to the building to check in, a Military Training Instructor (Drill Instructor) asked me to hastily place all of my luggage against the wall and then kindly showed me how to stand at the position of attention. We then spent the next 2 hours standing at attention in long lines as we were in-processed. After that, we had about 10 minutes to get our luggage to the dorms, pick up our camel backs (a backpack-like device with a long straw for carrying drinking water), and report downstairs where they marched down to the base uniform store. I picked up a few things and was then sent back to the dorm because I purchased my uniforms before arriving. That is by far the best advice I received before coming because it saved me about 4 hours of waiting in line. The rest of that evening was spent setting up our rooms, computers, etc. We managed to get to bed around 2245.

The next morning, Training day (“TD”) 1, our MTIs came in and woke us up at 0415. We were given about 2 minutes to shave, brush our teeth, put our shoes on, and line up to file downstairs and start the day. Most of that day consisted of more in-processing, blood samples being taken, mandatory drug testing, shot records, etc. Again, I was sent back to the dorms after lunch because I already purchased all uniform items.

Our real training began on TD 2. We woke up at our usual time of 0440 and reported downstairs in Uniform by 0450. We spent the next 2 hours out on the drill field learning the basics of marching. From there, we went to breakfast. Meals here are not the most enjoyable experience. The food is decent enough but because we are new trainees, we must eat “tight meals.” All trainees must sit at the position of attention with feet at a 45 degree angle. Your back must not ever touch your chair and you are only allowed to bend forward at the waist to prevent spilling. Of course, there is no talking. You have up to 20 minutes to eat but we always manage to finish in about 7. Also, every trainee must drink a minimum of 3 8oz glasses of water with every meal. This process is pretty intense on your digestive tract.

After breakfast, we spent time in a lecture hall receiving instructions on various subjects. Lunch and dinner were both pretty much like breakfast and we had planned activities until about 0900. Thursday, TD 3, was pretty much the same as Wednesday, however, we finally got broken down into flights. Our training class has 330 people in it which is ENORMOUS when compared to the typical class of 200 or so. We are broken down into groups of 15 to 16 people called “Flights.” These will be the people I will spend the majority of the next 4 weeks with.

Friday, we had off and today, all we had was a little test over our operating instructions. It was open book, multiple choice, and pretty easy. That is a pretty quick run-down of how things are going. Lots of drilling and lots of studying coming up. Next week we have our first physical fitness test, an assault course, and something called Project X. We don’t know what that is but it sounds exciting! In addition to all that, we will have about 6 hours per day of classes and another 3-4 hours per night to study and prepare. This next week should be much more indicative of how the rest of my time will be here. I hope that the next message I get to post will be good news (meaning we have earned a few privileges so my lovely wife won’t have to post this from my emails to her!).