Tuesday, May 31, 2005
Plans for the future....
I've been fielding the question "so what are you doing next?" a lot lately so I figured I'd update the blog with my tentative schedule. I emphasize tentative because nothing is certain in the Marine Corps, or the military as a whole for that matter. I could do things faster or slower depending on weather (active hurricane season predicted), number of students waiting to start, and needs of the Marine Corps. It's all subject to change, but the plus side is that no matter if I'm flying two sorties a day or chillin on the beach, I get paid the same! Gotta love government work.
June 9 - Graduation from The Basic School; no more humping, field exercises, or dealing with the leadership "styles" of my peers. Hoo fucking ray!
June 13 - Start IFS (Initial Flight Screening) This is a program recently started by the Corps in which student naval aviators (me) without a private pilot's license go to civilian schools in order to gain experience before starting the Navy school in Pensacola. In no more than 60days I will go through ground school, attain 25 flight hours, and do a cross-country solo. That does not mean across the US, it just means that I will have to navigate the route myself instead of using predesignated flight routes.
August - Head to Pensacola! Sandy beaches and blue skies here I come!
???? - Start API. Aviation Pre-Flight Indoctrination is a six week course in which they test you to see if you have what it takes to survive flight school. We take a bunch of written exams, they try to drown us several times in the pool, and we get a stamp on the book. This is in question marks because I don't know when I'll start it. The rumors abound and they vary from us starting immediately to us not starting until November. I'll just do what I've got to do now and worry about that later.
? + 6wks - Start Primary. This is the first phase of flight school which every Naval Aviator attends regardless of their platform (helocopter, jet, cargo) It is 27 wks long and can be done in Pensacola, FL, Corpus Christi, TX, or Vance, OK. It is our grades in Primary which determine what we fly. They produce a list of available slots (20 F-18, 34 CH-53, etc.) and you get to pick in order of your class standing. Graduate #1 and the world is your oyster. Graduate last and you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong. (Kudos to those who recognized the Top Gun refrence)
? + 33wks - Stard Intermediate/Advanced. This is where you learn how to fly helocopters, jets, cargo aircraft, or tilt rotor aircraft (Osprey). Can be in Pensacola, Corpus Christi, or Meridian, MS.
? + ? - RAG Squadron. Replacement Air Group. This is where a newly trained pilot hangs out and trains until there is a spot open for him/her in a combat squadron. You are flying F-18s, Harriers, Cobras, etc at this point, but you are not yet ready to be deployed.
About two years from now - Assigned to my first combat squadron. Likely assigned collateral duty as the Substance Abuse Control Officer (you watch people pee in a cup) because that's what they do to new guys; give them shitty collateral duties. Hell, I don't care as long as I'm out of school and flying the real thing. At this point I am ready to deploy and a fully trained Naval Aviator. Long jourey, but certainly worth it all.
BTW, the dream is Flying the F-18A out of Mirimar, CA. I just have a need for speed and the F-18 is the nastiest, fastest thing out there. Some of those Air Force jets are faster, but they don't base off of carriers. Nothing increases the pucker factor like trying to land on a pitching steel deck not much wider than your wingspan which is less than 150m long, and nothing exhilirates like catapulting from 0 to 165mph in two seconds.
June 9 - Graduation from The Basic School; no more humping, field exercises, or dealing with the leadership "styles" of my peers. Hoo fucking ray!
June 13 - Start IFS (Initial Flight Screening) This is a program recently started by the Corps in which student naval aviators (me) without a private pilot's license go to civilian schools in order to gain experience before starting the Navy school in Pensacola. In no more than 60days I will go through ground school, attain 25 flight hours, and do a cross-country solo. That does not mean across the US, it just means that I will have to navigate the route myself instead of using predesignated flight routes.
August - Head to Pensacola! Sandy beaches and blue skies here I come!
???? - Start API. Aviation Pre-Flight Indoctrination is a six week course in which they test you to see if you have what it takes to survive flight school. We take a bunch of written exams, they try to drown us several times in the pool, and we get a stamp on the book. This is in question marks because I don't know when I'll start it. The rumors abound and they vary from us starting immediately to us not starting until November. I'll just do what I've got to do now and worry about that later.
? + 6wks - Start Primary. This is the first phase of flight school which every Naval Aviator attends regardless of their platform (helocopter, jet, cargo) It is 27 wks long and can be done in Pensacola, FL, Corpus Christi, TX, or Vance, OK. It is our grades in Primary which determine what we fly. They produce a list of available slots (20 F-18, 34 CH-53, etc.) and you get to pick in order of your class standing. Graduate #1 and the world is your oyster. Graduate last and you'll be flying a cargo plane full of rubber dog shit out of Hong Kong. (Kudos to those who recognized the Top Gun refrence)
? + 33wks - Stard Intermediate/Advanced. This is where you learn how to fly helocopters, jets, cargo aircraft, or tilt rotor aircraft (Osprey). Can be in Pensacola, Corpus Christi, or Meridian, MS.
? + ? - RAG Squadron. Replacement Air Group. This is where a newly trained pilot hangs out and trains until there is a spot open for him/her in a combat squadron. You are flying F-18s, Harriers, Cobras, etc at this point, but you are not yet ready to be deployed.
About two years from now - Assigned to my first combat squadron. Likely assigned collateral duty as the Substance Abuse Control Officer (you watch people pee in a cup) because that's what they do to new guys; give them shitty collateral duties. Hell, I don't care as long as I'm out of school and flying the real thing. At this point I am ready to deploy and a fully trained Naval Aviator. Long jourey, but certainly worth it all.
BTW, the dream is Flying the F-18A out of Mirimar, CA. I just have a need for speed and the F-18 is the nastiest, fastest thing out there. Some of those Air Force jets are faster, but they don't base off of carriers. Nothing increases the pucker factor like trying to land on a pitching steel deck not much wider than your wingspan which is less than 150m long, and nothing exhilirates like catapulting from 0 to 165mph in two seconds.
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
15 Miles
The staple of every Marine Corps physical conditioning program is not the run, it is the hump.
Take everything you need to survive in the field for four days or so, cram it into a pack, and let's go! We do five here at TBS; 6,8,10,12, and 15 miles in length. I have always done well, but that's kind of a given when your inseam is 34"
The hardest one was actually the 8 miler, we did that one after FEX II, which was two very long days of digging, assaulting, and getting rained on. Wet and muddy gear weighs twice as much as normal. It was not fun.
Today was our 15 miler, it is supposed to be the "culminating" physical conditioning event. They use that word a lot here; culminating. Oh well.
So we loaded all of our packs up at 0450 this morning and headed out on buses to Chancellorsville, the site of a major Civil War battle. It was kinda cool seeing the battlefield, but honestly it was mostly gravel roads and trees. We did piss off some of the locals, we had to shut down a section of road for a time while our column of 243 lieutenants and all the support assets necessary for that column passed by.
It was also cool seeing the civilians and their different reactions. Kids are the greatest, they just stare with their wide eyes, amazed by what they see. Some people cheer and honk, some just ignore us. We almost always do our humps on base, the people there have seen it all before and probably done it several times themselves. It was fun to do the hump off base.
So how do you do a hump? We hike for 3- 3.5 miles and then take a ten minute break, load back up and do it again until we get there. Your body progressively gets more broken down, your shoulders hurt more with every mile, your feet become more sore, your knees feel more weak. I was feeling pretty good this morning, but in the first two miles something was going wrong. My left foot was developing a hot spot, the precursor to a blister. This is a bad feeling when you have 13 miles to go. Fortunately I got the situation corrected with a sock change and removing one of the two inserts in my left boot. I felt later like my right hip was hurting from my leg being a little longer on that side, but then I discovered that both hips hurt. Good to go.
We pressed on and the miles just breezed by. As silly as that sounds, the miles can go quickly when your peers are engaged and you can talk and joke around. Unfortunately today, most of the people around me were not in the mood to talk. I felt pretty damn good until about mile 10. Then the pain set in.
My knees started to hurt, my hamstrings started to feel weak, my shoulders started to throb more, my neck tightened up, and stabbing pains began to shoot through my feet. Now this was not a sudden onset, just a gradual progression which came to a head around mile ten. The feet are the one thing that seem to come on quickly, you're good and then all of the sudden you're not. The strange thing about my feet is that I almost never get blisters, but my toes feel like all of the skin has been peeled off of them. It sucks the most when you head uphill; that was torture.
On top of all this, it was a warm day today and we began the last three miles at 1100. My boots and clothes were completely soaked. Good shit.
We only lost two people today, and both of them were men. We have some of the toughest women you will ever meet here. One of them is only 5' tall, 100lbs soaking wet, but she humps the same load we do and makes every hump. I've never felt like I couldn't make it, this was actually the easiest 15miler I've ever done. It is just an exercise in pain management.
The best part was that after this was all over, we had to take an hour long exam on defensive operations. That kind of exertion really does a number on your ability to comprehend and think critically. I'm sure that's why they chose to give us the exam at that time, to see how we would do. In reality, the hump is a means to get you there, your mission is not over once you get there, you still have to fight.
Time to eat and take a shower, this will feel soooo good.
Take everything you need to survive in the field for four days or so, cram it into a pack, and let's go! We do five here at TBS; 6,8,10,12, and 15 miles in length. I have always done well, but that's kind of a given when your inseam is 34"
The hardest one was actually the 8 miler, we did that one after FEX II, which was two very long days of digging, assaulting, and getting rained on. Wet and muddy gear weighs twice as much as normal. It was not fun.
Today was our 15 miler, it is supposed to be the "culminating" physical conditioning event. They use that word a lot here; culminating. Oh well.
So we loaded all of our packs up at 0450 this morning and headed out on buses to Chancellorsville, the site of a major Civil War battle. It was kinda cool seeing the battlefield, but honestly it was mostly gravel roads and trees. We did piss off some of the locals, we had to shut down a section of road for a time while our column of 243 lieutenants and all the support assets necessary for that column passed by.
It was also cool seeing the civilians and their different reactions. Kids are the greatest, they just stare with their wide eyes, amazed by what they see. Some people cheer and honk, some just ignore us. We almost always do our humps on base, the people there have seen it all before and probably done it several times themselves. It was fun to do the hump off base.
So how do you do a hump? We hike for 3- 3.5 miles and then take a ten minute break, load back up and do it again until we get there. Your body progressively gets more broken down, your shoulders hurt more with every mile, your feet become more sore, your knees feel more weak. I was feeling pretty good this morning, but in the first two miles something was going wrong. My left foot was developing a hot spot, the precursor to a blister. This is a bad feeling when you have 13 miles to go. Fortunately I got the situation corrected with a sock change and removing one of the two inserts in my left boot. I felt later like my right hip was hurting from my leg being a little longer on that side, but then I discovered that both hips hurt. Good to go.
We pressed on and the miles just breezed by. As silly as that sounds, the miles can go quickly when your peers are engaged and you can talk and joke around. Unfortunately today, most of the people around me were not in the mood to talk. I felt pretty damn good until about mile 10. Then the pain set in.
My knees started to hurt, my hamstrings started to feel weak, my shoulders started to throb more, my neck tightened up, and stabbing pains began to shoot through my feet. Now this was not a sudden onset, just a gradual progression which came to a head around mile ten. The feet are the one thing that seem to come on quickly, you're good and then all of the sudden you're not. The strange thing about my feet is that I almost never get blisters, but my toes feel like all of the skin has been peeled off of them. It sucks the most when you head uphill; that was torture.
On top of all this, it was a warm day today and we began the last three miles at 1100. My boots and clothes were completely soaked. Good shit.
We only lost two people today, and both of them were men. We have some of the toughest women you will ever meet here. One of them is only 5' tall, 100lbs soaking wet, but she humps the same load we do and makes every hump. I've never felt like I couldn't make it, this was actually the easiest 15miler I've ever done. It is just an exercise in pain management.
The best part was that after this was all over, we had to take an hour long exam on defensive operations. That kind of exertion really does a number on your ability to comprehend and think critically. I'm sure that's why they chose to give us the exam at that time, to see how we would do. In reality, the hump is a means to get you there, your mission is not over once you get there, you still have to fight.
Time to eat and take a shower, this will feel soooo good.
