BOLCII Day 1: Hurry up and wait!

Up at 0545, Out the door and Gedaliah I find 3rd PLT and fall into 4th SQD. The LT leadership is all West Pointers who have been on the ground for the past 10 days. Roll call and 3rd/4th SQDs are dismissed to chow and downtime (!) until 1000 for blood draw and a series of in-briefs after noon chow by the BN and BDE Cmdrs. Did I mention I hate needles!? Prior to the blood draw they ask for everyone’s medical records… See above post on that! Fortunately there must have been a mixed up because they gave them all back before it was evident mine is missing. My shot records must be up to date in the big magical Army computer because I only have one draw, some of the ROTC get up seven!

In-briefs were actually pretty good, motivation mixed with reality of why we are here as an junior officer corp, what to expect and have fun but not get in trouble types stuff. I did learn that there are only two branches in the Army…. Infantry and Infantry Support –Ha!

It was inspiring to see 480 LTs in one place and one time (both C and D Co’s starting up)

Back at the D Co area we had our informal in-brief with the cadre, they all seem very level headed and dedicated to teaching us things with out being unreasonably hard-core. We were releases about 1730 (!) and Gedaliah hit chow in civvies and head into town to Ranger Joes to have “2LT name” (Black thread on white) sown own our new reflective vests that we had the honor of buying earlier in the morning (orange mesh with HORIZONTAL yellow strips and two white Velcro tabs. Tip: See my post about buying from Clothing Exchange first, they charged us $7.50 and Range Joe’s wanted $14.50 for the same thing.

That’s it for now. Got to make some phone calls and hit the bed early for 0520 formation.