Drill Sergeant School - Day 11
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Yes, they have kept me busy. And some days I am NOT a happy camper. Well, on Monday, I found myself thrust into the Squad Leader Position a little earlier then I expected to be (I thought I would be taking over duties on Friday Night but alas. . .) and being a bit of a grump already from circumstances involving that morning which was me getting chewed out for something that I did that I felt I was in the right for doing, well, to make a long story short, we had a rehearsal, I got chewed out for correcting something at the rehearsal, the next morning we had to do it in front of the drill sergeant, the same mistake was made, and when I made mention that maybe we should have corrected it the night before, I was chewed out for mentioning this in front of the drill sergeant. Well don't bother wasting the precious little free time I have if you are going to take constructive criticism defensively. Man I was pissed! So anyway, we had the confidence course on Monday. The confidence course consists of a bunch of obsticles that test your nerve and your physical abilities. Some things require just getting over your fear of heights (which I discovered I have mostly conquered as I had no problem with height obstacles) whereas others needed you to have a certain level of physical fitness to acomplish, which I discovered that I am lacking, especially in the upper body. And then there are a few, like the Low Belly Over (also known as the Bad Namer) that you have to be a certain height to really tackle. And seeing as an obstacle very similar to this sent me to the emergency room in 2004, I may have a bit of a mental block on that specific obstacle. Overall, I discovered that I need to work on my upper body strength, and we were informed that we can go to the Confidence course on our own time if we wish to, however we cannot tackle the larger obstacles without range clearance, which is ok, because there were a couple that I wanted to tackle again in about three weeks to see if I can do them. But first, well, we need to work on that upper body strength. I have been informed that units use the female drill sergeants as demonstrators on these obstacles, because it is ia confidence booster to the privates (both male and female) that if a girl can do it, why can't they? However, before they go off using me as a demonstrator, I better be able to tackle the obstacles first. I'm ok on the height obstacles. Its the smaller obstacles I appear to be having issues with. Hmm. . . Running was my issue coming into this course, and I knew this. However I've been running very well since I've been here, until yesterday. I have a comment to make on the end of cycle AAR (after action review) on one thing they can do to improve the course, and my suggestion would be to not hold a Run which requires you to stay in formation after doing something like the confidence course that leaves people bruised, soar and stiff the next day. Trust me, I don't like to make excuses (though I seem to be making a lot of them while I'm here) but you can't expect people to go beyond their physical capabilities. And furthermore, they have two run groups here. Two. One (A group) is for people who run a 14:50 or less (that's roughly a 7:30 mile) and the other (B group) is for everyone who runs slower then that. Now, A group probably runs their run at a 7 minute pace or something, and I can understand if B group runs at about an 8 minute pace. The thing is, in order to pass the run at 70 points for my gender and age group, I have to run a 9:15 mile. Yes, that is slow, but I have been running faster and when they did a one mile assessment I ran it in 8:40, and I bet I could shave a bit more time off of that because that first ability group run (AGR) smoked the crap out of me but I managed not to fall out. However, when I'm recovering from the confidence course and have a big massive bruise on my arm (which is proof that I was trying at the confidence course because this bruise is NASTY!) it doesn't help when they decide to run at an even faster pace, causing all but one of the females to fall out of the run. I was smoked, I was out of breath and I was hurting, but I kept running. The drill sergeants were yelling at us the entire time for shaming the NCO corp and thinking that we could be Drill Sergeants but damn, I know my limits, and when B group is running at a 7:15 pace (which was the guestimate) of course people are going to fall out! I was going to go for a run this evening but, well, we'll get to that in a minute. I just know that I need to keep running. I have been running a lot, but apparently not enough! Every Drill Sergeant is required to be a Combat Life Saver, because privates are stupid and might need an IV one day. So we have been going over first aid procedures for the CLS soldier thoroughly these last couple days. Today was a stick day. Meaning I took a needle and stuck somebody with it. And they were supposedly supposed to stick me with one too. In fact, we had to go through the entire process of giving an IV to our partner. Joy. I remembered why I am not a medic. For one, I'm not overly fond of needles (I have a phobia of sharp pointed things pointed toward my eyeball). And I need to gain a little confidence to just suck it up and find that stupid vein! Whatever the case, I think I've got the process down and tomorrow I should be able to do it correctly, which should lead you to the question of why didn't I do it today? Well, I stuck myself (the needle was clean when I stuck me). And because there was blood on the glove, it was a dirty stick. Which meant I had to go to the hospital and get blood drawn. Now quite frankly, I'm not overly worried about catching hepatitus or AIDS from this, and the doctor said that the chances of me acquiring anything was next to zero, but its policy so I had to wait in the emergency room with a bunch of sniffling snotty nosed privates so I could get my blood drawn. I showed off my bruise to several people. They were impressed and showed suitable grimaces. I do not miss the ER. Especially after having to wait for four hours when I learned later that I could have gone straight to the lab, explained my circumstances, and likely cut three hours out of my wait time. Or something. I get to go back tomorrow. After we take our CLS exam. And then I get to go stick my partner again, showing that indeed, I can stick a needle in a vein and go through the process of administering an IV. Maybe. Tomorrow we roll for modules, so as soon as I pitch that, well, this weekend is a two day weekend for us (I know, weekends are supposed to be two days but Saturday doesn't count and monday is a holiday so I get two full weekends!) I think I'm going to go running. After I heal from my bruise.
Posted by Erickson on 5:23 PM : (((
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Go! Go! Go! Yeah Sgt E!
WA Tom | Homepage | 08.30.07 - 10:33 pm | #
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