Air Assault School: The 12-Miler

In my initial post entitled "Air Assault School, Completed" I briefly mentioned the 12 mile ruck march. I am going to go a little more in depth now because, well, I want to.

As I mentioned earlier, according to one Air Assault Sergeant, it was hotter than Benning at Camp Smith during the course. It was 100 degrees and 90% humidity the entire time. It was brutal heat. However, anyone in the Army knows that with enough time and hydration, you can get used to the heat. Your body gets used to it. You get acclimatized.

So after a summer at Fort Knox and then Air Assault, I was pretty used to the heat. So when it came time to do the 12-Miler I'm expecting a grueling suck-fest of, well...suck.

I wake up at 0300 (the ruck begins at 0430) to the sound of pounding rain. My first thought is not one of anger, or depression, it's "Of course...why wouldn't it be raining?" So I get up, relieve myself, and brush my teeth.

I bring my ruck down to the 1st platoon barracks where my remaining battle buddy is. He's senior to me and is a paratrooper, so has more experience than I do with equipment and the like. He's in the process of wrapping his poncho around his ruck, and thus, waterproofing it. I quickly follow suit and do the same thing. The previous night, we had packed our rucks together in such a way that the 30 pound load feels like it's cut in half, and our ruck looks half as big as everyone else's. My buddy has done the ROTC Ranger Challenge for 4 years at this point and I guess he knows a thing or two about packing his ruck. We had prepped for this ruck since the beginning of Phase Two. Every night at chow, we were given a juice box of Gatorade. We would steal an additional one after dinner if there were leftovers, and as the ruck begins, we have 4 Gatorade boxes in our ammo pouches on our LBEs. Everytime we get up the ridiculous uphill (see below), we'll down a box of Gatorade before driving on.

Before we head off to first formation, I realize I have to take a piss. I decide to hold it, and use it as motivation to finish the ruck in as little time as possible. We step outside the barracks and discover it's 50 degrees outside on top of the rain. I start shivering immediately, but I actually like it. Maybe this ruck won't be so bad after all if I'm not sweating balls the entire time.

Me and my buddy link up as the ruck begins (I was in 2nd Platoon, he was in 1st)and we run for about a half mile until we hit the huge hill I had mentioned previously. If you lean forward at the waist to bear the weight differently, you can almost touch the ground with your hand. If I were a math major, I'd give an approximation on the angle of the slope, but I'm not so I won't. It's fucking steep, is all I'm saying here.

We walk that up and then run a good bit of the lightly sloping downhill (I find it ironic that the downhill is not nearly as steep as the uphill). Throughout the remainder of the ruck, we do a combination of walking swiftly and running (to destinations in the distance or in 10 second intervals of sprinting). We're hitting an average of 12 minute miles, 3 minutes ahead of schedule every time.

When we finish the first 3-mile loop well ahead of schedule and we're not the least bit tired, I look at my friend and tell him "We're giving our families a graduation today." He nods in agreement and we begin running to the bottom of the hill.

Somewhere around mile 6 or 7, we both acknowledge the fact that we're completely soaked and that our feet are swimming in sweat and puddles of rain water. We embrace the suck and drive on.

(SIDEBAR: Embrace the suck became the motto of Air Assault School, or at least to me it did. Right before I rappelled out of the UH-60 as I'm waiting on line for my turn, the Sergeant Major of the Warrior Training Center came up and talked to me. He told me the 12 miler was going to suck, and I told him I would embrace the suck and ask for more of it. He would later on make a speech to our class before the 12 miler and "Embrace the Suck" was at the core of that speech.)

Around mile 9 me and my friends legs cramp up and we have to stretch our legs as we walk, but at this point, we have a comfortable lead on time, so we don't have to run anymore.

We stretch and cramp and curse and walk and talk and bitch and moan and drive on.

As we're passing our last quarter of the last mile, an Air Assault Sergeant is passing us in the opposite direction. As he walks by he says to me and my friend "Congratulations Air Assault, you made it."

Yes we did.

A Cadet's Journey: The first email

Sometime yesterday I received my first email regarding this blog and I'm a little excited. I want feedback from those people who randomly stumble in here looking for "US Army Air Assault School."

I hope my blog helps in any regard and if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask. I am not an expert, but I wear my wings proudly. I can give you knowledge on my experience, but that's it. Before I left, I went to Barnes and Noble and I looked up books to buy on Air Assault school and didn't find any. This blog is partially my response to that. If it can help in anyway, then I did some good.

Aside from that it's me recording my journey as a cadet up until I get my butter bar, and right now a big part of my cadet life has been Air Assault. I don't hide the fact that I'm Air Assault and was one of the best experiences of my life, and most people who find my site find it by searching some variant of Air Assault (thank you Feed Burner).

That being said, here's my first email I received and my response. I hope this helps.

Reservist (he didn't give a rank) Brock Thibodeaux wrote:

"Hey whatsup man. I'm an enlisted reservist right now, future cadet, and I've been bugging my unit commander to get me into air assault school this summer.

But..it doesn't look like they're gunna pay for me to go there. So I was really thinking about going as a walk on.

I read your blog and saw that you and your buddies were walk ons and got slots due to passing the obstacle course and because others got dropped.

My question is....how did you get the class dates for West Point? Also, what paperwork do I need to show up with and do I, as being enlisted, get paid active duty pay during my 10 day training period?

To tell you the truth I'll catch a greyhound if I have any chance of going to this kick ass school!

Thanks"

My response:

"Yeah man, anything you can do to get to this school, do it. If you gotta take a bus and camp out in front of West Point, do it. It's essentially what my battalion did.

As an enlisted man getting pay, I don't know. I didn't get paid to go. As a cadet, you're honored with the chance to go, and we're so mega high-speed, hoo-ah, hoo-ah that we don't care we're not getting paid.

Getting a walk on is sometimes easy (the year before I went a whole platoon of 82nd walked on, according to my friend who walked on the prior year), but for me and my four friends, we almost didn't get in. The OIC was a good guy and he saw we were motivated and hard workers and let us have our shot.

As for the class dates, I don't know. I had just gotten back from Fort Knox doing the Leader's Training Course and my friend called me on the last day and said he heard a rumor we had slots. So as soon as I got home, I went to my battalion S-1 and bugged them until they let me take the qualifier to get to go. I aced it and went.

The only paper work I brought was a letter from my Battalion Commander saying I was who I was, I was qualified and legitimately won my spot, my DoDMERB and a record APFT score card (within the last 3 months). My ID card and dog tags also came with me.

As far as the packing list, our S-1 pulled it off the internet from the 101st Sabalauski Air Assault School, however this was a problem. Sometimes the 101st boys teach Air Assault School at Camp Smith, other times it's the National Guard Warrior Training Center. Our instructors were WTC and they had their own packing list. It was a huge snafu. They wanted their list, ROTC cadets had the 101st list and the West Point kids had a West Point list. The only people who had their list were the Guard and Reservist who won slots in their battalions.

So, my advice to you is find out those school dates anyway you can, and then call up West Point and find out who is teaching that class so you have the right equipment. I don't see your BC or your CO giving you problems with going if you're dedicated to going on your own. As long as they know they're not paying, you should be good to go. "

Just to be clear, I asked his permission to reproduce his email here. If you email me, I will offer you the same courtesy.

Air Assault School: The "O" Course

The Obstacle Course (or "O" course) is the first thing you do at Air Assault School. Well, actually it's not at Air Assault School because the O course is Day Zero and Air Assault officially begins on Day One.

The O Course is pretty grueling. There are 9 obstacles altogether, 2 of which are mandatory. The first mandatory obstacle is the "Tough One" (seen right.) which consists of a rope climb, walking across wooden planks, climbing up a log ladder and then climbing down a cargo net. This one is non-negotiable. You have to pass this or you go home. Learn how to climb a rope before you go or you're wasting your time. Also, if you just man your way up the rope using upper body strength, learn proper rope climbing technique with your legs. You will be smoked before the obstacles so you can't just use raw stength.

Now, my experience at Air Assault varies with one of my friends who went the year prior. I had the Warrior Training Center conduct my school and my friend had the 101st Airborne conduct his. During the O Course for the 101st, he had to say "Air Assault!" everytime his left foot hit the ground. When I was there, we didn't have to do that. We just got smoked in between obstacles.

"Alright Air Assault, good job on the Tough One, now bear crawl over to the Weaver." After the weaver it was "Now do the Steam Engine all the way to the Confidence Climb" and so on and so forth.

The other mandatory obstacle is the Confidence Climb. Basically, it's a 60 foot ladder that you have to stretch your entire body to climb each rung. It wasn't that difficult for me since I'm not afraid of heights, but if you are, perhaps Air Assault really isn't the place for you to be. When you rappel out of that UH-60, you will be 100 feet up in the air with nothing to break your fall except your face.

Aside from that there are some pretty standard obstacles, like a low crawl through a mud pit and a horizontal log jump (jump over each log without touching it with your legs), but the toughest non-mandatory obstacle is the Weaver. (pictured below)

You have to weave your body under one log and then over the other in succession.

You're only allowed to fail one non-mandatory obstacle, but try not to fail any at all.

After the O Course, you're drenched in sweat, mud and victory but you're going to need to complete an 18 minute 2 miler afterwards. The faster you finish the O Course the more time you have in between the run and the time you finished.

18 minutes doesn't seem like much, but you will be smoked so it's going to suck a lot harder than you think, but still, if you can pass an APFT there is no way you should fail it.

Philosophical Musings on Being a Cadet

I know I have more stories from Air Assault School and Fort Knox I just can't remember them at the moment. Things I've told my friends that I think are insignificant are stories to them. So while I reload my brain I want to give a philosophical musing on being a cadet.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I'm a genius (I doubt that, highly), maybe I go to an easy school (likely), and maybe I have an easy major (undoubtedly so), but I barely spend any time actually doing work for college. I get a lot of it, granted, but I never pay attention to it. When an assignment is due, even a 10 page paper, I cram the research into the night before and pull an all nighter. On days like this I often show up to Ranger Challenge PT at 0500 having not gone to bed. It would be more prudent to budget my time better and spread the work load out evenly as I used to in the past, however I can no longer give school my full attention.

The worst part about being a cadet is the fact that you have so many "bosses" in your life.

I have my Army boss, which is getting ever more so demanding as time goes on. I was promoted to cadet staff sergeant and as such I always have to call squad members and find out why they're not at PT, compile a leader's book and so on. Basically, I wind up doing upwards of 30 hours of work a week for my Army boss and it's stuff I enjoy doing.

I have my Work boss, the day job I need to work in order to eat and pay for gas. Cadet Command gives cadets a stipend every month so that they don't have to go to work and can concentrate on just being a college student and a cadet, however, cadet command failed to take into account the fact that, while there aren't many of us, there are still some cadets in New York City. The standard of living here is ridiculous, and I can't survive on the stipend the Army gives me. Basic Housing Allowance for Army personnel living in New York is about $2,000 a month, one of the highest in the Army. Why doesn't the Army pay out a housing allowance based on where the cadet lives, like the rest of the Army? Oh well, the world may never know. Maybe they'll let me know when I'm a lieutenant, but I doubt it.

Finally, I have my School boss. I still need to go to my classes and get good grades (well I don't have to), but I need to in order to get into the branch I want. The branch I want is highly competitive and I need the best grades I can get, the highest PT score and a load of extra curricular activities in order to ensure I get my first choice. (Based on my personality in all these writings, it should be clear what my branch choice is, but I'm not going to say it so I don't bias any further writings....well, anymore than I already do).

That being said, the one that takes precedence in my life is my Army boss. It's what I want to do and I want to do it now. I immerse myself in it. I consider myself a Student of War and I can't get enough of it.

Instead of reading my textbooks (which I don't even need, why do I waste my money every semester?) I read books on war, anything. I can't get enough.

I've read and re-read the "Art of War" about 10 times, "Starship Troopers" about 6 times, and then I go to Barnes and Noble and buy a new book, mostly two, every week. I read and despised "Jarhead", I am reading and enjoying "On Killing" by LTC Dave Grossman. I am constantly reading histories, of the US Army, of the Airborne units, Medal of Honor winners, anything I can get my hands on.

This is what I want to do with my life and I'm becoming more and more institutionalized. Going out with my Army buddies on weekends is such a difference than my other friends. We can have entire conversations without saying anything and understand what needs to be done, just based on hand and arm signals we apply to real life (such as at a party or restaurant). I know, we're a bunch of dorks for doing it, but that's how big of an impact it has on our lives.

After completing Air Assault School and rappelling out of a helicopter, roller coasters don't give me a rush any more. After completing Cadet Basic at Fort Knox, I know how to prioritize and what's really important in life and what's not. I love the whole Army experience and despise the fact I'm not doing it 100%.

People say I could get into the real Army and I could hate it, and there's always that possibility. But at Fort Knox, the typical garrison day of the Soldier was broken down for me and that doesn't seem so bad. The training is going to be fun. FTXs, rucks, runs, marksmanship and weapon's quals. All that is awesome. Even the times when you don't sleep and you don't eat are not going to be that bad. I've been there. I've done that. I've embraced the suck and come out alright.

The only thing I have no idea about is deployment and combat, which is why I study war. To steel myself mentally and emotionally for whatever might come my way. I have an intellectual idea of what it's going to be like, but if you haven't been there or done that, you really have no idea.

All I can do is sit and wait and occasionally pray when I feel like bothering God, but I usually don't because He has enough to worry about.

That's the "normal" life of this cadet.