IBOLC to PL

A lot has happened since my last entry. As it stands now, I recently got promoted to First Lieutenant (1LT) and am currently a Cav Scout (more on this later) Platoon leader. Here's the breakdown:

LTO:
Oh, the LTO. I don't think words can describe what the LTO is without doing it some injustice. For those who don't know, let me explain. The LTO is the Lieutenant Transition Office (now known as HHC, LTO is a technically outdated term, but we still call it that), and it's where motivation goes to die. The LTO is quite possibly the worst place in the world. The LTO is the governing body and is where LTs report in between schools (since we have to go to so many). There are 4 Platoons: Pre-IBOLC, Pre-Ranger, Post-Ranger and Follow On Schools, and the PCS (Permanent Change of Station) platoon (the guys getting ready to leave because all their schools are done). You do PT in the morning, check in at 0900 and once again at 1300. That's it, that's all you do. Unless...of course...you get tasked. The taskings vary, from playing OPFOR (essentially, playing the role of the bad guy for the students going through IBOLC on missions), to Sergeant Major's detail (cleaning Latrines, mopping floors), pulling Staff Duty (being up at the front desk of battalion for 24 hours) or, and I was prvileged enough to be on this detail, pulling up carpet and breaking tile. It turns a bunch of Army Officers into Privates, and since they treat you like Privates, you start acting like one. Instead of volunteering for anything, you consistently try to shirk duties and get the new guys to fall for it. Salutes and respect? You can forget about that at the LTO. Actually, pretty forget about that at Ft. Benning. You're a Private they call "sir" usually with a sense of irony and a tad bit of mockery. Most of the NCOs are cool about it, yet some of them treat it as their last chance to take every dig they can at an Officer. I am not alone in this opinion/observation.

IBOLC:
Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course, the basic branch school all Infantry LTs need to complete, was slow at times but overall I learned a lot. I was one of the first classes to go through the new 16 week course, as opposed to the old 13 week iteration, and to me and some of my fellow students, that they had not quite figured out what to do with the extra 3 weeks. There was A LOT of hurry-up-and-wait, and there were times were we sat around doing nothing for hours on end. That, I hear, has changed, and even the school company that started right after us had a different schedule of events then we had, so, it was/is a work in progress. The first 6 weeks of the course were basic infantry skills, tedious and boring, yet required. We had all done it a hundred times before, but at an Infantry course, you need to be sure your Infantry Officers can meet the minimum standards (marksmanship, PT, land navigation, etc). Week 8, for me, was my best week at IBOLC and the week I felt I learned the most. That's when we concentrated on Operation Orders (OPORDs) and planning missions to a detailed degree I never though imaginable. Breaking down a Battalion level OPORD to what your Platoon needed. I had never used transparencies to draw out the Execution paragraph on map overlays before, nor did I ever do such indepth Terrain, Enemy and Weather anlyses. I lost more sleep that week than any other week in IBOLC because it was very intellectually challenging. The final two weeks of IBOLC consist of Leader Forge, which is intentionally run like Ranger School, in order to prepare Infantry Lieutenants for thier next immediate challenge. Leader Forge isn't hard, and it doesn't even suck that bad. It's just continual missions, waiting for your turn, and supporting your buddies as they take their leadership roles. IBOLC was a positive experience for me, and I felt my platoon cadre were the best trainers of the other ones I had observed (and I'm not just saying that because they check in on this blog from time to time). What set them aside from the other leadership, in my experience, was the fact they never stopped riding us. They never gave us a break. When the other platoons zonked PT, we were out there. They were cool with us, but always firm, friendly, but never buddy-buddy. It was a good template for how to engage your Soldiers and NCOs when you arrive at your unit.

Ranger School: Ranger School for me...hasn't happened yet. I didn't meet the standard, but my Troop Commander has given me an open invitation to go back whenever I feel I'm ready.

Airborne School: Airborne school was definitely an experience. It was the first place on Ft. Benning I actually got treated like an officer. Officers at Airborne school don't have to do any of the duties that the cadets and privates have to do, and the instructors usually smoke and joke with you (and the other NCOs), rather than constantly sneering at you. You do get some additional duties, like being a safety on the towers and such, but overall, the payoff is better. You get released for breakfast and lunch. Airborne School, I feel, could be conducted in 1 week vs 3 weeks, because everything you learn (the PLFs or Parachute Landing Fall) goes out the window once you hit the ground. The PLF is a mythical creature that has never been seen in the wild. The PLF is the, supposed, method of falling once you hit the ground, and the Sergeant Airbornes teach it to you in painstaking detail over the course of 2 weeks. You hit the ground and certain way, and curl your body and roll with the floor, that way, displacing all your energy and therefore (in theory) minimizing injury. However, what usually happens is the wind blows at the wrong time or anything and you hit the ground like a sack of potatoes being dropped off the Empire State Building. I brought up this observation at Mech Leader School (more to follow) and a Captain in that course with me was a former Company Commander at Airborne School. He pretty much locked me up and told me I was just doing the PLF wrong and basically I was a dirtbag who didn't know what he was doing/talking about. So that may be so. However, my friend broke his leg so bad at Airborne he might be out of the Infantry. Another one sprained his ankle, not so severly, but severly enough he had to wait to jump again.

As for my jumps, I was first jumper, first jump (I was also first jumper on my 3rd jump). I wasn't scared on the way up. I wasn't scared at all until I hit had to stand in the door. Then all I could concentrate on was the fact that there were a lot of trees below me. I looked down. Never look down. All I kept thinking of was how badly I'd be impaled if the plane banked and I flew out the door. The green light on the door lit up, I got a slap on my ass and heard "GO!" in my ear. The first jump we got to jump with the T-11 (new parachute vs the T-10D). That is an amazing parachute. You fall so slow and hit the ground relatively gently. The next 4 jumps we jumped with the T-10Ds, and you fall FAST and hit the ground like a turd hitting the water. I did two combat jumps and one night jump for my fifth and final jump. I almost broke my tailbone on the night jump. Thankfully, it was my last jump. So now, I'm a five jump chump and if I never had to jump out of a plane again, it'll be fine with me. I'll do it if I have to, I can. I'm not scared of it. It just sucks. The ground never gets any softer.

Mech Leader: Mech Leader school is the school at Benning that teaches you familiarization with the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and how to employ it. Not much to say, it's a 3 week course that is largely academic. It's a gentlemen's course and was probably the best course I attended in the Army so far. It was all about knowledge and learning, not about smoking or anything like that. You'd come in, learn your stuff for the day, then go home. I also fell in love with the Bradley here. It's an amazing machine. If I ever get into a Bradley Brigade, I wouldn't mind.

Platoon Leading: So I PCS'd from Benning after Mech Leader and headed out to my first duty station. I was put on Brigade Staff for 2 weeks until a Platoon opened up in the Brigade (BDE). One opened up in the Cavalry Squadron, and it was offered to me, and I jumped on it. Now I'm a Platoon Leader and I'm loving life.

Future PLs, don't worry. Just be you and do you. Don't try to be tough or change up your gameplan (unless that's how you are normally). Like I wrote about going to LDAC, you've gotten yourself this far by being you, don't go in and throw a Hail Mary on the first play of the big game. Your NCOs will be good, or they won't be, and you'll do your 30 day analysis and then get cracking.

Life sucks in TRADOC, especially if you're Infantry. Don't worry, though. There is a light at the end of the tunnel. It's called being a Platoon Leader and it's everything you thought it would be, after training for it for some many years.