Of Assault Courses and Spirit Missions

The second week at COT was the beginning of our program in earnest. All of the confusion of the first week sorted itself out as we fell into our flight roles and mastered the rules and regulations as laid out by our OTSMAN. We came together even more as a flight, and we began to see exactly what it meant to be at COT -- constant activity and a beastly struggle to stay awake.

As during the first week, we awoke every morning at 0440, far before the sun rose. We had our first physical training experience on Monday, the day scheduled for our Physical Fitness Baseline assessment. This is the test used to see if we were in good enough shape to not only fall into Air Force standards, but also to participate in many of the physical activities that began that week. It consisted of a 1.5-mile run, sit-ups, push-ups, and a waist measurement (strange, I know). With 96 points total (out of 100 possible), I was the top in my flight, which was really gratifying after spending the spring and beginning of the summer training hard. Plus, it was a unique experience running with my shirt and shoelaces tucked in (stylish).

Tuesday brought the first of many of a series of experiences that I enjoyed the most while at COT. Strangely enough, all of these experiences began with an MRE (meal ready-to-eat) for breakfast. A word about MREs: They are huge. They have enough calories to sustain you for an entire day, if necessary. Also, they are as close to non-perishable as possible, which makes you wonder a bit what exactly is in your beef stew... At any rate, we all soon learned which items were desirable (Skittles, M&M's, peanut butter, Pop Tarts) and could be easily bartered among the flight. Some of the more interesting items included kippered beef snack, patriotic cookies, and maple sausage. Despite the less desirable food quality of MREs, I came to look forward to MRE meals because it meant we could actually relax (rather than eat in less than 8 minutes), talk to fellow flightmates, and not worry about downing 24 ounces of water per meal.

You know it's going to be a great day when you find Skittles in your MRE.

After our first of many MRE breakfasts, we were bused to the Assault Course. Here we each had the opportunity to climb up and down unstable logs and cargo nets, leap and climb over walls and monkey bars, and shimmy up and down ropes and through the sand. We all cheered for each other as we faced each of these unique physical challenges, and we even got to cheer on Capt Raley as she participated alongside us. We also had the opportunity to practice our Sidewinder chant and get pumped up for how awesome our flight was.

It may not look that tough, but this can be a difficult task for short legs...

The next day, after another MRE breakfast, we participated in Project X, which is a team-building exercise. We were given ridiculous scenarios which posed both mental and physical challenges; our task was to work in teams of 6 to solve and complete each task in 20 minutes. Needless to say, it's not easy to transport 5 team members and a medicine box across a raging river (with the sixth member, the strongest one, already across) with only a too-short ladder and 4 various-sized ropes in under 20 minutes. Inevitably, someone ends up in the drink. (Not me, thankfully.) The tasks were fun and challenging, and they allowed us to see where some of our strengths and weaknesses were as team members.

The rest of the week was spent mostly in class. We learned about leadership, team-building, management, and Air Force and military doctrine. We came to rely heavily on Jolly Ranchers, caffeinated gum, and a friendly tap on the shoulder from fellow flightmates to stay awake, especially during the hours-long Boyd sessions. The instructors, for their part, were phenomenal. They knew that we were running on less than 6 hours of sleep per night, and they did their best to keep us entertained with video clips and anecdotes even while teaching such thrilling topics as "Management Functions and Principles." Also, many of the take-home points were compiled into conveniently standardized lists, such as the 4 stages of team-building: forming, norming, storming, performing. I'm really looking foward to whipping that one out at some point in medical school.

A much-needed break between classes in Boyd Auditorium.

Friday morning was our first hall call. What is hall call, you may ask. Hall call is an exciting ceremony in which we all get to yell really loud and show off our spirit for our flight, our squadron, and our Air Force. The academic, athletic, and overall flights of the week are given honors, and the squadron of the week is named as well. At the first hall call (and all subsequent ones, I'm afraid), Sidewinder Flight did not win any awards. We did, however, win the heart of our squadron commander, Capt Stapleton, who said that we had the most unique chant. How unique, you may ask. Well, here it is:

SIERRA! This flight is...
Automatic
Supersonic
Hypnotic
Funky freshhhhhhhhhh!

SIDEWINDERS! Get b'hind us! Cuz...
We da best
Stayin fresh
Keep it steezy
Nice and easy

Say WHAT?!
SIDEWINDERSSSSSSSSSSSS!
SHO'NUF!

At the end, when we shouted SHO'NUF!, we'd make our arms into a snake symbol to show just how awesome we were.

Showing some Sidewinder spirit!

At hall call, we were awarded third-class privileges, which meant that we could go anywhere on base that weekend -- we were no longer confined to the OTS complex. That may not sound too exciting, but being Sidewinders, we took full advantage of the situation. That's right: we went bowling. Since we were still required to wear uniforms all the time, we got a few funny looks as a horde of us entered the bowling alley wearing ABUs (Airman Battle Uniforms -- the camouflage ones), but we didn't care. We giddily enjoyed this normal activity even more than second graders on a field trip to the zoo.

The shoes clearly complement the look.

Our mischief for the weekend was not complete, however. All throughout the week, the Falcon Squadron had been annoying us. Each time they passed by their statue outside of the DFAC (dining facility), they would halt, pat it on the head, and then continue marching while bellowing the Falcon cheer. All throughout the week, my fellow flightmates and I sneaked honey packets out of the DFAC at mealtime. Our intention was to covertly dump honey on the statue's head, giving all the Falcons sticky hands for their arrogance. The plan changed when one of my flightmates, Capt Frandsen, realized that the statues were not very heavy and could be moved. Thus our true spirit mission was born: Lt Luu, Lt Weller, and I would keep watch and take pictures while Capt Frandsen, Capt Olsen, Lt Dollar, and Lt Coulter surreptitiously slipped the statue into an oversized duffel bag; Lt Gould would wait faithfully and patiently to let us in the back door of the dorm. All of this was done under the cover of darkness. It was a success: the poor Falcons had to put up with the double indignity of missing their statue and facing down the mocking ransom posters Capt Frandsen posted all over the dorm. On top of that, we got a bit creative and gave the statue a makeover:

Redecoration-and-ransom party

The triumphant return of our hostage was nearly thwarted when the Falcons stole the CQ log (charge of quarters -- it's what we had to sign in/out of for everything), but luckily we had already sent 4 of our flightmates outside, so they returned the hostage while the rest of us waited at the back door. It was an exciting triumph and the first of many attempts to make ourselves known. Believe me, we succeeded.

Finished product -- vile bird.

And the rest is a story for a later post.