Good luck SSG Lime

Tuesday: Was a bit of a wash in terms of FS training. For those of you that live or know Florida, you know that the weather can be fairly unpredictable. Seeing that the temperature has been steadily rising combined with the 50% chance of rain, I figured there was a good chance that there would be no FS training. I was correct. Having figured this, I did some time on the elliptical after my personal training in the morning. I have noticed that since my personal trainer has realized that I will be leaving soon for BCT, she has been stepping up the intensity of my workouts. She has been increasing the weight load as well as including some cardio exercises like suicides in between sets. She has also been stepping up the core exercises. I am liking it becasue a lot of these exercises she is having me do were the same ones I was struggling with right after starting with her. I can see and feel the progress I have made in the last six months.

Wednesday: Due to the fact that my wife will be moving in with her parents until she leaves for grad school, we will be storing our stuff at a storage unit by her parents' house. So I had the pleasure of driving and finding a decent place to trust my property with while I am gone training. During the prior weekend, my wife and I had begun packing our belongings. We are quite accustomed with the process due to the college life. I just wish I could go a year with out moving for once.

Due to some lack of communication on some of the recruiters part, another day of FS training was wasted. SSG Capcom was not able to make it into the office in time for the training. The sad part is that two or three of the other recruiters in the office were too busy to facilitate FS PT. Whats worse is that we had a good number of FSs on hand ready to go. However, the good part of the whole situation is that a good portion of the FSs decided to group up and go to the YMCA and workout together. I decided not to take part because the gym I have a membership just happened to be in the same plaza as the recruiter office. I was motivated enough to hop on the treadmill and spend about 30 minutes on the treadmill and run a 5k! It felt good. I then did some upper body work.

Thursday: Like clockwork, I met with my networking friend to film another episode of Rick and John's Weekend Update. Here is this week's video:

Was a productive day at the FS PT. Before we left for PT, the station had a Captain and First Sergeant come by to be a part of SSG Lime's going-away ceremony. After this, SSG Lime will be going back to his normal duties as a Combat Engineer. He received a commendation for his hard work during his 3 years as a recruiter. Evidently he has done a lot for the station. I believe he was an awesome recruiter and could not ask for a more honest representative of the Army.

SSG Capcom was in good form to get us to experience "temporary muscle failure". SSG Capcom turns out to be a fan of the P90X and Insanity workouts. He decided to to do a circular group workout session with plyometric exercises. It turned out to be a very challenging session. Combined with the sun, everyone must of dropped a pound of sweat each. 

Friday: Had my usual 0700 personal training session. My trainer again kept up with the stepped up intensity in my workout session. I plan on having her step it up even more next week. I came home and did some more packing to get ready for another trip to the storage unit. I actually like the process because I get to purge things from my life that I no longer need. It only makes the feeling of me starting the next chapter in my life even more apparent. 

Saturday: The day started early with me getting to the recruiter's office to carpool down the local reserve center in Orlando for a FS Training event. This happens periodically by former and current drill sergeants in the reserves. However, upon arrival to the center, we were informed that the whole place was shut down due to the whole budget fiasco in Washington. 

However, there was one DS that decided to do some training after seeing how many FSs showed up to learn. These are the kinds of things I like to see by good NCOs in the Army; even though he was not getting paid, he made sure our trip to the training was not in vain. He was able to get the EST 2000 up and running for us to train on during the day. The EST 2000 is simulator used at all BCT locations that recruits and soldiers train on with realistic replicas of various rifles, including the M-16. I really enjoyed the training and did fairly well. Here is a session of FSs shooting 3 rounds. 

The only problem with the training was that there was only DS to train everyone. This led to the recruiters to stepping up and hanging around to facilitate in training different lessons; map reading and grenade & claymore training. 

Some instruction prior to using the EST 2000

You can't see it but a FS decided to throw his mock grenade a little too far into the mock foxhole. SSG Capcom made him get it.

FSs trying to help out the FS who threw the grenade too far.

SSG Capcom made the FS do push ups becasue he had the same MOS as him.

This video is me doing a claymore drill. I took it easy as not to get my shorts stained.

The event was overall very useful and I feel much more comfortable with the rifle. I think that I will have a much easier time getting used to the M-16 at BCT.