Lower Class Arrival, TD-31 tomorrow

Its been a while since my last post. Its Sunday, 14 July. The lower class arrived on Tuesday the 9th. Its hard to believe it, but we were in their shoes about six weeks ago. I'll explain a little bit about their arrival day, and then share my thougts and observations. OT's (officer trainees) start rolling in at about noon. They park their cars and are greeted by an upperclassman. They are directed to a tent where they recieve an attache case, and are instructed on appearance (shirt and shoelaces tucked in, etc). They are treated politely at this point, and the stress is low. They then take their belongings to the "dojo." This is an artifical turf field covered by a roof, and provides some relief from the sun and heat. This is where the upper class inprocesses them. They proceed to a series of tables and get checked in, issued name tags, reflective belts, camel backs, apply for a STAR credit card if they need to,are given a pocket sized OTSMAN (OTS manual containing rules/regs and guidance) and a HAWK (a booklet of things that have to be memorized) etc. They also get instructed on the position of attention, etc. It was very visible that their stress was increasing. At this point they would be corrected by the upper class on things they were doing wrong. If these corrections came from commissioned staff, they were yelled at. One of the best yellers of the commissioned staff happened to be walking around, and as bad as I felt for the new OTs, it was amusing watching them get lit up for something they probably didnt even know they werent supposed to do, but thats all part of the game.I was amazed at the visiblly increasing stress levels these people were under. I don't think I was nearly as scared as they looked, but its hard to tell. Finally, after visiting all these tables, they were rushed over to stand in line. We remind them why they are here, and let them know that it is about to get intense. Once forty of them were lined up, they were walked (very quickly) the 1/4th mile to the dorm. I was one of the people who walked them to the dorm. This job sucked because it was hot- we were under black flag conditions. Anyway, once they got to the dorms they were met by the MTIs (miltary training instructors). These are the guys that people often refer to as drill sergaents in the flat brimmed hats. The OTs are lined up in front of the doors while the MTIs find a few to yell at. This serves to let them know that they are not special, and it doesnt matter what you were before you got here. They are then rushed up the stairs to their rooms to drpo their stuff off. they are then rushed back outside where the MTIs begin to teach them about drill (marching). Below is a video my room mate took out of the third floor laundry room window of such instruction taking place. I apppoolgize for the picture quality, as the video was texted to me, but the audio is good and thats really all that matters. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dBXmAPdLRyY Its nice having a lower class here since they are now the focus of attention. There is some added work, however, we now have to correct deficient behavior we see. We can't simply walk by and let it continue. So far this has not been too bad. I choose to use a constructive approach, and always treat the OTs in a professional manner. I'm still amazed at how scard/nervous they are around upper class. Last week we were briefed on how we should interact with them. It was explained to us that we were not supposed to create stress for them, but it was explained that we still would. This is definately true. I am the Squadron One mentorship officer. I solicited upper class volunteers to be mentors, and assigned 15 of them to the 45 lower class Goldhawks (I have to report 100% contact back up to the wing). We had our first mentoring meetings on friday. I also provided some tasty snacks and candy purchased with squadron funds since I think they deserved it. The sessions were well received. I filled in as a mentor for an upper classman who had family in town and cojuldnt make it. It was nice to put the mentees at ease and talk to them about how things have gone so far, answer questions (about stuff I could talk about- theres some stuff they shouldnt know about) about whats coming up, give them tips that might help them, and get to know a little bit about where they're from and what they are going to be doing in the AF. Since I was in charge of mentoring I gave myself three reservist pilots. One is flying C-5s, another KC-10s, and the third was C-130s. All airlift/tanker guys. Upcomming events: This week we have advocay briefs. These are briefs where we must take a position on an issue, write a position paper on it, and then present to the class. I chose an issue not on the list we were given; protests at military funerals. As repugnant as the individuals of the Westboro Baptist Church are, I feel they should be able to freely express their opinions and peacably assemble on public land. To target a group just because its message is unpopular is very dangerous. What if you had an unpopular message you had to share at some point? We also have Leadership Reaction Course at Project X. This is a graded measure were we are graded on our performance for one scenario where we are a leader, for al other scenarios we are either team members or safety observes. This is a site on the OTS campus that has a bunch of of "obstacle courses" in a 20ftx20ft cement "room" where we have to work as a team to move ourselves and our supplies from start to end. When we first got here we did two project X scenariosou. I was leader for one where we had to move from start over water to a 4 fot tall cement piling that was 1ft x 1ft about 6 feet away using a plank and some rope, to another piling about 6 feet away, and the onto a big pipe, and then go through the pipe. If you touched the water, or anything painted red it was a 30 second penalty and all members and equipment had to return to the start. This may not sound like much, but when you only have 20 minutes it is. Next week we have our second written test on monday. This is the last graded measure we have that goes into our overall grade. On tuesday we leave for AEF. This is our mock deployment where we live in tents, and have other graded leadership evaluations.