Two Terrifying Tests--Today and Monday

At dinner yesterday, most of the talk was about to the terrifying tests. We took one test this morning. We will take the second test Monday morning.

This morning's test is called height and weight. We line up in our PT uniforms, take off our shoes, step up on the scale and get weighed and measured. That height and weight measurement is compared with the chart. "Making height and weight"  as it is called means you weigh less than the chart allows for your height. If you don't make height and weight you could be sent home. In most cases the soldiers who are just a few pounds overweight are allowed to stay because we do so much PT it is likely they will pass the next time. We take a fitness test followed by height and weight at the end of every month.

The height measurement put me at 71 inches and 186 pounds. My scale at home says 183 and my less calibrated tape measure says 72 inches. But even though the Army thinks I am shorter and fatter than I am at home I still was within the standard. At my advanced age I am allowed to weigh up to 197 pounds at 71 inches tall.

On Monday we take a grammar test. Soldiers who don't pass this test do not get sent home; they actually spend more time here. If you fail this test, the school puts you in a two-week, intensive, remedial grammar program and you start regular classes two weeks later. As with height and weight, I'm pretty sure I will do okay on this test, but most editors I have worked with would wish I was put in the remedial grammar program.

I just finished lunch with my classmates. Now I'm headed home for about 24 hours. I'll have to return tomorrow afternoon. I am bringing back three more bikes. I already have one of my racing bikes here. And I'm going to bring the others to loan to soldiers who flew here from far away and have no transportation. It really is a great group of soldiers that I'm in. I hope they all pass the grammar test and we stay together.

This morning when we were waiting for height and weight one of the students who has been here a month and a half told us when their group took the grammar tests all of the Army people passed, but six Marines and two Airmen  failed. I am going to hope that all the soldiers pass and it is Navy, Marines, and Airmen who fail.

Hurry Up and Waaaaaait

Yesterday we reported to the orderly room to complete in processing paperwork at 0845 hours.  And waited.  At 0930 hours one of the cadre sergeants started our initial briefing.  He said he did not want us to hurry up and wait.  Then he had to go to a staff meeting.  He said he would be back in 30 minutes.

At 1215 hours one of the sergeants in the student group said, “I’m making a command decision.  Time to go to chow.”  We went to chow, ate quickly and returned to the waiting area.  At 1315 hours, the sergeant who left us in the morning came back and said he had not had lunch yet and was going to eat.  He told us to go in process at dental and medical and return at 1500 hours for finance and administrative paperwork.

Most of us were rejected at medical because our orders were not yet in the system.  We tried to fix this by going to the ID Card section, but the line was so long we could not get the paperwork fixed and get back at 1500 hours. 

So we left.

At 1500 hours we waited again then got our administrative paperwork completed. 

This morning several of us went back to the ID Card building.  We are getting a lot of the paperwork done.  In fact we may get the paperwork completed this morning. 

I am writing this partly to help me stay awake.  We were up again at 0400 hours and will be up every day at that time until we graduate.  This morning’s PT hour was warm-up exercises followed by a 2.25-mile run then stretching.  After the first quarter-mile, the run was self paced.  I finished about 15^th out of the 52 soldiers who ran.  Another 20 or so left the formation because they had medical profiles that excuse them from running. 

Several soldiers shook hands or bumped fists with me after the run.  Getting over the “shitbag” impression takes time.  Everyone is aware who finished up front in the run.  Of course, everyone behind me is younger than me, mostly by a factor of 2 to 3.  So now the soldiers who look at me as just old know that I can run.

In Processing, Hurry Up and Wait

It's 8:15 AM.  In processing my new unit begins 30 minutes. I've already been up since 4 AM, I did an hour of really hard training, rode my bike, took a nap, and I just finished breakfast in this lovely dining facility.  Whew!!

The alarm went off at 4 AM. I did not get ready as fast as I could have and just made it to formation at 4:45 AM. At 5 AM fitness training started with the usual warm-up exercises. Then we did push-ups and situps and the instructor’s favorite exercise: lie on your back and lift your legs and upper body together. By the time the hour session was over I had done 150 situps, 140 push-ups and I don't know how many other various exercises.  I was tired. I went for a short ride on my bicycle just to stretch out and was riding nine or 10 miles an hour.

When I got back to my room, I tried to read and then ended up checking my eyelids for leaks. They did not admit any light for the next 30 minutes.  After I showered and changed I went to the Dining Facility (not called Chow Hall or Mess Haul anymore).  This lovely place served a breakfast my sons live for:  Omelets, bacon, sausage, biscuits and gravy, waffles, scrambled eggs, juice, coffee, bagels, toast, grits, home fries, hot and cold cereal, and fresh fruit.

I ate like I did an hour of hard PT then started writing this post in the Dining Facility.  I am at the in processing unit now.  Real Army here!  We are sitting in rows of chairs facing a TV waiting for someone to come out and tell us how to fill out their particular Army forms. 

More on in processing later.  I thought this was going to be nothing special, but we are almost at two hours of waiting.  In the active Army, accountability is everything.  What matters is that the people in charge of us know where we are.  Our time has no inherent value except in accomplishing whatever mission our leaders have.  So a dozen men and women are sitting in front of a big screen TV watching the movie “300” probably for the tenth time.  And we are here to learn to be writers.

Presumed to be a Sh*tbag!

Today is the first of 90 days on active duty with the Army. I am at Fort Meade in Maryland attending the defense information school. This morning my wife saw me looking anxious as I got ready to leave and asked what was bothering me. I thought for a minute and then told her that I was thinking about going to a new unit and having active duty soldiers presume I was a shitbag. 

The Army and all military services are very competitive. Everyone is sizing everyone else up based upon their appearance or how they speak or how they carry themselves. So I know that when active duty soldiers see someone who is my age and my rank they assume I am some kind of hold over National Guard failure. At my age I should be a general or a Sgt. Major or a warrant officer five.  They don't assume I started over after a quarter-century break in service. 

When I reported to school today they sent me to the billeting office to get quarters. I walked in the company responsible for quarters and told them I was reporting for school. There were four young soldiers at two desks in that room. One of them got up to ask the Sgt. in charge where I should be assigned a room. The soldier who was walking turned and asked one of the soldiers who is sitting down which group I should be in.

One of the soldiers who is sitting down said with an obvious sneer “He’s a reclass, look at him.”

The soldiers who attend Army schools are either straight from basic training or they are being reclassified. I am obviously not straight from basic training.

At 5 AM tomorrow morning I will start to undo one assumption that young active duty soldiers make about old National Guard sergeants. Students have physical training every morning at 5 AM. They will expect me to have a profile or waiver and not participate. 

When I reenlisted six years ago I knew this would happen. At the time I didn't think I'd still be here past age 60. Tomorrow I will process into the school and do what ever other paperwork and medical tests they require.

And tomorrow night I will let you know how things go with fitness training. It should be fun.

On active duty in two weeks!!!

 It's time to start posting again. I will be on active duty for three months beginning Wednesday, August 7.   So in just two weeks I will be a full-time soldier. I am not going overseas and I'm only going someplace dangerous in the sense that I will be writing my bicycle in suburban Washington traffic.

I will be  in Army journalism school at Fort Meade Maryland until November 5 of this year. You might wonder why the Army would send a 60 year old soldier to school. I have been trying to get into this school since I got back from Iraq in 2010. Last year I got the chance to possibly deploy with a Stryker brigade.  That deployment would have started in November of this year. To get ready for the deployment I needed to be an Army trained public affairs Sgt. So the plan was that I would go to the school and then joined by deploying unit with the correct MOS  or military occupational  specialty.

President Obama announced in his State of the Union address that the United States would be leaving Afghanistan faster than the current schedule. This meant the deployment was canceled. But I had changed jobs in my unit and I needed this new MOS. So I am going to school at age 60 to learn how to do the job I have been doing as a civilian since 1978.

It may sound silly for me to do this but I am looking forward to this school. The military combines the training of all five services in public affairs so I will be in school with soldiers from the Marines, the Air Force, the Army, Navy, and even the Coast Guard. As you can imagine the military has the best crisis  management training available. Crisis management has not been one of my specialties so I'm looking forward to learning from the best.

 Anyway,  I will write every day on active duty about what it's like to be in training with 20-year-olds from all five services. Or at least I will do my best to write every day. Homework first!!

Finished Tough Mudder--Report Overdue

My apologies for being off line for so long.  I ran the Pennsylvania Tough Mudder on Sunday June 2 in the last wave of starters.  One of my bicycle riding buddies and a body builder, Lois Olney, joined me for the event.  It took three and a half hours for us to run almost 11 miles and clear 23 obstacles.  

I went into the race thinking the Ice Enema would be the toughest obstacle.  For that one, you run up a ladder, jump into a 6-foot deep, 20-foot long dumpster full of water and ice, swim under and obstacle in the middle and climb out the other side.

FREEEEEEEEEEZING!!!!!

But that was not the worst.  Two miles up the road we crawled under barbed wire with shock wires hanging from it.  I got zapped in the head three times, saw flashes behind my eyes and got disoriented.  I managed to shake it off and keep going, but the shocks were worse than the ice.  In comparison to them, climbing walls, horizontal ladders and mud pits were a snap.

Lois and I rode to and from the event on single-speed mountain bikes.

We were WIPED out on the way home on the 50-mile car ride from where we parked.  

About 10 miles into the drive, we saw an Arbys and both decided we needed meat.  NOW!!!

When we stopped we looked at each other and sniffed.  "Is that us?"  The Tough Mudder was on a farm and we smelled like fertilizer.  We both ordered food then went to our respective rest rooms for a quick change of clothes.

Six days later, Army summer camp began.


Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 3

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman, Part 2

Tough Mudder vs. Ironman is Here

Second Tough Mudder Report

First Tough Mudder Finish

First Tough Mudder Photos

First Tough Mudder Entry

Ironman Plans

Ironman Training

Ironman Bucket List

Ironman Idea

Ironman Danger

Ironman Friendship

Back from Summer Camp--Best Pictures

For those of you, like my lovely wife, who are not on Facebook, here are some of the best pictures from Summer Camp 2013:

More soon!!!