Mobolization Orders

Finally! The day has arrived where I have received my individual mobolization orders for the WLC (Warrior Leader Course) school I need to attend. May 23rd and 24th will be my 'Home station activities' days. That means Sarah will come with me over to the Litchfield Armory (which is where the unit I am deploying with is based out of) where we will go over paperwork, get her a Military I.D. card, and all that fancy jazz. They will be putting us up in a hotel over there because we live outside of a 50 mile radius from the Armory, so that helps save on gas and time. Then on May 25th is the day I leave for my WLC school. I will say my final goodbyes to Sarah, and any other family members that think they can make it over there that day. I will be transported to the airport where I will be flown, in a round about way, to Camp Shelby, Mississippi. (Also known as the 'Armpit of America' because of the humidity, blah)

Once I am in Shelby, I will have a few days to wait before I take my first P.T. (Physical Training) Test. For many of you that didn't know this, I was having some really nasty back problems. These problems resulted in me not being able to do any P.T. training for... well lets just say a VERY long time. According to the Army standards for this course, you are required to PASS your P.T. Test in order to complete the course. Having not done an P.T. for a VERY long time, I was extremely freaked out. (My back problems have since been fixed and I have been operating at 98%! But only for 1 month, so my P.T. still bites.) By me not passing this test, I would have been forced to stay down in Shelby for the length of the course, and that would not be any fun. However, I just learned this weekend that the Army has changed the P.T. standards for all Leadership schools (Which is what WLC is) meaning that you now DON'T need to pass your P.T. test in order to graduate the school! Talk about a HUGE sigh of relief! I have only been able to train for about 1 month so far to get my 2 Mile run time up to 16:35. Push-Ups and Sit-Ups are no problem, its all that dang running that gets me. Let me just say that I am nowhere near that. Now, however, I have some more time to get ready for the test!

The WLC school is approximately 2 weeks long. The graduation date from the school will be on June 9th. I will not be returning after the school is over, which was a possibility before. (We were hoping I could come back because there was a possibility that the Main Body was deploying later in June. That would allow me a bigger 'Family Day' with the Unit, but that did not happen) The Main Body will be arriving at Camp Shelby on June 7th so I will join up with my Unit right after I graduate. From there we will begin training, training, and still more training. We will be training as close to non-stop as possible. One of the last Units to be deployed to Iraq spent 6 Months training here in the States before they went to Iraq. We, however, will only be training in the States for a MAXIMUM of 90 days! That means we need to cram 6 months worth of training into anywhere from 2 1/2 - 3 Months. Add to that the fact that we are in America's Armpit, and you have some wonderfully warm days and nights!

Talk to everyone later!