LTC, pt 2

(... fyi, I'm taking some of the info from their blog, since they were there and know what they were doing better than me)

Squad Tactics

Cadets trained in squad tactics to get a feel for real combat experience.  They hiked through woods, water and mud.  They "learned to low-crawl, high-crawl and rush as though hiding from enemies and live rounds being fired at them during combat" on a dirt field.  Danny talked about how they were basically swimming in muddy trenches and were actually told to get dirty to help blend into their surroundings ... he also said he did laundry nearly every other night, lol.

... good clean fun, no? ;)

Where Eagles Dare

This is what they called the high ropes course, complete with various types of rope bridges, climbing walls, obstacles, and an alpine tower with a zipline at the end.  The course peaked at a height of thirty-five feet in the air with nothing but a harness for support in case you slipped.  ... there's a reason I'd never join the army.  :P  Danny talked about it being hard at times, but with the motivation of all his fellow cadets and the satisfied feeling after completing it, he said it was pretty fun.  (...um sure, lol).

(these people are crazy! that does NOT look structurally sound enough to climb, lol)

Team Development Course

A big part of army training and LTC is learning how to work together as a team.  "Using each other's strengths to work in teams, Cadets were put in leadership positions to guide their teams in completing five events at the TDC ... the goal of one of the events was to get the team over a wall, along with a can of ammunition, rope and a wooden board."  I'm not exactly sure what the other events were but they seemed to involve getting over high walls, going through pipes, carrying dummies like a wounded soldier, making impromptu plank bridges, etc.

Rappel Tower

They also trained at the fifty-one-foot rappel tower to learn how to rappel.  They had to "go down the side of the tower with the wall and also the side without one, known as the skid".  They also learned how to tie their own harnesses and proper technique, as well as motivating their fellow teammates to help everyone get through their fear of heights.

... the Army has a flair for dramatics, supposedly... they only did the purple smoke for the demonstration.

Weapons Training

Cadets spent time in the classroom learning and studying things like regulations, tactics, navigation, and about firearms, like the different parts of a rifle, how to take tem apart and put them together, the ammo, how to clean them and how to shoot.

Leader's Training Course (LTC), pt 1

I finally got together all of the pictures from Danny's time at LTC.  It'll mostly be pictures with some captions from the blog that LTC posted, since Danny doesn't really care to say anything (I may be able to convince him to add captions later, we'll see).  Also, he's not actually in a lot of these pictures.  Danny was in Alpha Company (out of four companies total), which had 198 cadets; Third Platoon (four platoons per company), about 50 cadets; and Fourth Squad (five squads per platoon), about 10 cadets.  For some events, platoons switched off days, so the photographer (each company had one) could only be with one platoon at a time (and he tended to favor first and fourth platoon).  So, I put all of the pictures with Danny I could, but the rest I'm posting to get a better idea of all that Danny did this summer.

ARRIVAL

Danny left for Ft. Knox on Sunday, June 12 ... at 4:00 am.  ugh.  driving him to the airport early in the morning in the dark through Austin's crazy construction-filled highways that I'd never been on before while being really anxious at him leaving for so long already made for an un-fun morning, to say the least... didn't help that on my way back I nearly ran over a porcupine in the middle of the road at the highway intersection.  Anyway, aside from my adventures, Danny got there safely and they got right to work, spending the first day getting yelled at orders from the drill sergeants who were waiting for them as they got off the buses, as well as getting signed in and getting all their stuff together.

In-Processing

The next day was spent getting records together, getting IDs, filling out paperwork, getting barracks assignments, and learning what they would be learning and doing for the next month.

Physical Training and First PT Test

They also had their first PT (Physical Training ... the army loves acronyms, lol) test, to gauge were everyone was and were they need to be.  The Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) test consists of a timed two-mile run, two minutes of sit-ups, and two minutes of push-ups.  The also started working on exercises for the new fitness training, the physical readiness training (PRT) which will consist of a 60-yard shuttle run, a one-minute rower, a standing long-jump, a one-minute push-up, and a 1.5 mile run.  Each day at LTC was spent working on their physical fitness with a variety of intense exercises.

CIF

(... okay, I'll be honest, I couldn't figure out what CIF stands for, that's just what they called this segment and Danny is front and center in one of the pictures -- I think he told me he was like squad leader or something that day, that's why he was in the front -- and it looks like they're getting issued more supplies and gear, and I think getting measured for their uniforms or maybe for their physical... well, whatever they are doing, here's a few more pics)

Guidon Ceremony

(... again, sorry but I don't actually know what this is, they didn't mention it in their blog... just looks like marching around in their ACUs [Army Combat Uniform] and standing in formation, but whatever, more pictures! ... and I really did cut back on the pictures they posted, honest...)

 

prepping for LTC

A big part of this summer was Danny going to a four-week Leadership Training Course, basically his crash course for the first two years of ROTC he missed since he went to junior college classes before transfering to Texas State University.  So, he got to go to Fort Knox, Kentucky for four weeks to catch up on all the army training.  They worked him ragged and had a lot of rough days, but he learned a ton and got a lot of great experiences.  And luckily for me, the communication between the training course and families was great.  They had photographers post pictures and writers post articles on a blog that wrote about what they were doing almost daily, plus Danny got to call me nearly every night.  That, along with the fact that people at church were really supportive and friendly and invited me to do things the entire time he was gone (though, annoyingly, that support all but disappeared the day he got back...), helped make the time apart much easier.

And an even better surprise, barely a week before he got back, Danny's parents called and asked if I was planning on going to his graduation ceremony for the course.  I replied that while I'd love to go and see him and support him, time and money were an issue.  They replied, "If you get the time off, we'll get you there."  And so, the next day, I was able to get a day off work, and a week later, I was on a plane with my mother-in-law (who was visiting Texas for a few weeks at the time) to spend the weekend in Kentucky.  It was a short visit, but I'm so glad I got the chance to see Danny sooner and meet his new friends and see all the hard work he did.  And then some of his siblings picked us all up at the airport and we had a mini-family reunion with his family.

ANYway, I'm picking out what pictures to post now (they posted several hundred that I'm trying to whittle down to one post, since that's all Danny wants to post), so here's a pic for now.  Danny had about a month and a half, nearly two months between end of school and beginning of LTC, which meant for that time period, he didn't actually have any requirements for his hair.  It's an on-going joke, persay, between us that he really likes military buzz cuts, but I really like him, well, with hair (though I admit, I'm getting used to the buzz cuts now, heck I'm the one who cuts his hair).  So one of his favors to me before LTC since he was going to be gone for so long, he "grew" out his hair for me.  ... it drove him crazy, haha, but it looked really nice.  This is him just before he got his haircut for LTC.

... yes, it's so horribly long, isn't it? :P

Relief Society Conference

(forewarning: this is kinda just a long rant.)  This actually happened in April, but whatever, I'm behind in my blogging.

April this year was just crazy.  Work got really really busy, Danny's classes got really really busy, and all of our weekends and freetime seemed filled to the brim with people to see, places to be, and things to do (though looking back I can barely recall what we even did).  And one other thing that seemed to dominate April, for me at least, was a stake relief society conference and a ton of drama that came from it.  About a month or so prior, all the drama started with me being "volunteered" with out my knowledge for a musical number during the talks at the beginning of the conference.  The stake lady in charge of the conference called me, told me that my wonderful RS pres had offered my services since I was RS pianist to help with a musical number.  I wasn't even planning on going to the conference since it was going to be my only Saturday off that month, but I'd already been volunteered, plus it sounded easy enough, she'd send me the music that week and I had weeks to learn it, no problem, right? -_- I should've said no.

Basically, it all came down to horrible miscommunication, but the weeks that followed were absolutely miserable.  Over the next few weeks, I'd come to realize a few things.  First, I wasn't just playing the music for our number, I was in charge of it.  Second, it wasn't just ladies from our ward, they wanted to combine all three wards from San Marcos (ours, the spanish ward, and the singles branch), so I had to coordinate with all of them.  Third, our song wasn't just a number between talks, it was one song of a dozen songs that comprised an entire stake-wide program (each ward had been asked to do a song).  And fourth, what I learned the week before the conference, the practice they said we'd have right before the conference (aka the one I figured we'd practice our song with all the different wards together, since I had just been practicing with each ward separately due to conflicting schedules) was actually just a run through of the entire program ... ie. we had to already know our song, which at that point we hadn't even had any practices yet.

On top of all these miscommunications, there was just a lot of drama trying to get people to join the performance at all.  Now, for me, I always hate being forced to do something I don't like (um, like this), and then made to feel guilty if I didn't want to or couldn't even go.  So I tried to make it absolutely clear that I only wanted people to sing with us if they were already planning on going to the conference and if they actually wanted to.  Granted, with that, you don't get many people to volunteer, so we had like two from my ward, five or six from the singles branch, and none from the spanish ward, but whatever, we'd make it work... however, our RS pres insisted that *everyone* participate, and kept going behind my back guilting everyone into going.  She coerced ladies to sing with us on the day of the conference who had never even seen the music before.  She even brought our poor RS chorister to tears right before the performance because our chorister, who works nights and hadn't planned on going, felt like she wouldn't be fulfilling her calling if she didn't join us despite having not slept in over a day and having always been great at fulfilling her calling every Sunday.  ... And on top of all this drama, the week before the conference, I got a horrible bout of stomach flu or food poisoning or whatever, leaving me horribly sick that entire week and missing all of our practices and leaving everyone so confused and frustrated.

... but, all in all, I guess it went okay.  Even though we ended up with twenty-plus ladies on the stand when we sang our song and had never sung it together before and probably half and never sung it at all before, it went okay.  The program went on, and it was done.  ... though I must say, maybe because of all the issues and drama or being sick or whatever, the conference itself just felt lackluster.  They had the musical program first, then had four workshops you could choose from, then a lunch (well, sorta lunch... I don't know if you can really call a piece of sugar-free cake and some corn salsa with corn bread a lunch, but whatever)... I think the hardest part was just that I really didn't know anyone there.  I had only been in my ward a few months and was barely learning anyone's name, plus they already had all their own friends to sit with, so I was kinda alone.  but whatever.  I did what they asked me to do the best I could.  ... and I will never say yes again if someone volunteers me without asking me first.

... the decorations at the luncheon... I swear it was hideously overdone.  Do people really like this kind of stuff? though I guess they did, it seemed like I was the only person not drooling over all of the junk.  It looked like Barbie got married and the puked over the tables in hot pink and neon orange.  I don't even know what it all was supposed to be.  It felt like several different ideas for centerpieces all placed together when one would've sufficed.  ... seriously, they should've put more effort and expense into the food.  ... can you tell how much I love relief society events? *eye roll*.