Week One of Training

Hello all! So first week of COT is done. I am basking in the enjoyment of the weekend, with only a few assigned duties (test, drill/marching, meetings, stack of readings, assignments, 5k run), and I got to sleep in till 5:30! Haha, can you tell how my schedule has changed in only a few days?

Upon arrival at COT the drill instructors were happily waiting to yell at us for various things. We got pushed through a lot of orientation and more yelling. We had to get fit for uniforms, which was chaotic. There are about 300 fellow officers in training here, which is an overflow class (they usually have about a third of that). So everything was a little bit of mass confusion at first. I met my roommate, who is a laboratory person. She’s great and we are enjoying each other’s company. I am in a smaller group of 16 people (the flight), also good people and we are figuring out how to mesh our personalities and work as a team.

The first morning we were woken up at 4:30am with banging on the door and yelling to get in the hallway. At which point we were given three minutes to get dressed and outside. A little rushed to say the least. Lots of inprocessing and forms to fill out, oh, and more yelling. The next day was a few intro classes, more yelling, drill instructions, finishing uniforms, my first experience with MREs… complicated to eat when you don’t know how to. We met our flight commander, who was terrifying, and still kind of is. He loosens up in class, but yells a lot. I had to lead our flight in marching and there are sooooo many little details and wordings to get right, so he yells at the leader the most. I should make a point here that when I say ‘yell’ it’s usually only a raised and angry voice, not verbally abusive or right in my face. It’s more of discipline and corrections. Only sometimes if instructors are reallllly mad do they shout. Anyway, it makes me throw up a little in my mouth and have an extremely raised pulse when leading and being ‘disciplined’ but that’s the best way to learn so I didn’t mind stepping into that position (we all take turns leading).

As a basic overview of life here: We get up at 4:30am, have to be downstairs by 4:45 and off to class or physical training (PT) or marching by 5. Usually we get about 20 minutes to change to uniform and be at breakfast. Then classes/drill, lunch, classes/drill, dinner, mandatory study time and then personal time (aka more study time) till lights out at 2330 (aka 11:30), and repeat. We have about 10 minutes between things and if you remember the 290 students, about 60% male, 40% female, bathrooms tend to have long lines. Basically pants are undone and ready to go while in line. Who needs privacy? Meals are crazy, we sit at attention, no talking, no looking around. We technically get 20 minutes, but they yell if you aren’t done and moving out in about 5-10 min. The food is actually pretty good, or would be if I have time to enjoy it. We have to drink water constantly (yeah hydration pack!), including at least 3 glasses of water before any other beverages with meals. Yes, we sweat a lot (uniforms are sooo hot in the humid, 90 degree sun) but still, that’s a lot of fluids intake… and remember the comment about the bathrooms, and we can’t leave during lectures… I don’t think there have been any ‘accidents’ yet, just some close calls.

As for me, I am up and down emotionally all the time. I feel frustrated by the lack of organization (there is organization, we just have to figure everything out ourselves, which is hard when you can’t ask anyone except the several hundred other people that don’t know), then happy with meeting new and interesting people, then annoyed at the clashing personalities, then very proud of what I am doing here, then confused what the heck I was thinking in signing up for this, then excited to be a part of the Air Force, then feeling like I am dirt for not knowing things faster… you get the point. Everyone here is in the same boat. The workload is insane. The schedule is intense. My poor hair (which was too long for uniform) is falling out from being pulled back, pinned up, then hair-sprayed excessively, and not washing (no time for full showers, just a quick rinse). I have one week done, I’m still standing. I took my first written test and got 100%; it wasn’t that hard. I passed my PT baseline test (25 push ups!). And it’s the weekend, so I’m feeling good today.

I miss everyone back home. I miss sleeping. I miss having my hair down. I miss coffee. But I am doing this and proud to be here and will have interesting memories. :)

Dustin, if you read this, sorry for all the grammatical errors. Please don’t hold it against me.

Oh andddddd, my flight is going with a Star Wars theme for our group name, chant and mascot, so I’m pretty happy with that choice. I’m working on my Chewbacca call for part of the chant.