OTS Advice – June 2017 Grad

This was posted in one of the OTS class Facebook groups.  Posted with permission.  I could be wrong but this sounds like a Det 12 experience to me.

First Day

Check-in was from 1200-1600.  I arrived at 1430.  Show up with your laces and shirt tucked in.  The MTIs and the Squadron Commanders were all there to “greet” us.  They were pretty intense.  Just remember your customs and courtesies and to move with a sense of urgency.  Different MTIs grabbed groups of people and started instructing them outside the dorms on the basics of customs/courtesies and marching.  Then, we went inside to grab our welcome packets, which had our room assignments on them.  Once I got my packet, I went outside, grabbed my luggage and went to my room.  After dropping off my stuff, we formed up on the other side of the dorms to march over to the OTS shoppette.  From that point on, you will always have your HAWK and OTSMAN on you at all times.  So while we were waiting for enough people to form up outside, we were standing there reading our OTSMAN.  Then, we marched over to the shoppette, where everyone grabbed any uniform items they didn’t bring, toiletries, and items on the pre-positioned list.  Take your time in there because otherwise you will be standing outside for a long time waiting for everyone in your group to be done.  Then we marched back to the dorms, where the MTIs did not give us any direction on what to do besides go to our rooms, so people sat in their rooms doing nothing for hours and hours waiting for some kind of instruction.  What you should do is unpack your luggage and start setting up your room according to the dorm manual.  You will have an MRE to eat in your dorm for dinner, and you should be allowed a 15 minute phone call to let people know your address and that you are fine.  It is a long day of waiting around not knowing what to do or what’s coming next.  Then, the MTIs should hold a meeting with the whole class before lights out that evening.

First Week

The whole first week was a lot of standing around, getting yelled at, and learning how to march.  My feet had never hurt so bad in my life.  Everybody’s feet were killing them.  Make sure you have Dr. Scholl’s inserts in your boots, and make sure you wear comfortable shoes the first day in your civvies.

The second day, we immediately started wearing ABUs.  As priors, you will have to help your roommate get dressed because most likely, they have no idea what they are doing.  They woke us up at 0430 on the dot by yelling and banging on doors.  It’s not as crazy as BMT, and they won’t make you do push-ups/sit-ups/etc. or yell in your face.  They also will not embarrass you or single you out.  You will know who is in your flight right away because your rooms are all next to each other.  There are 16 people to a flight, 4 flights per squadron, 4 squadrons per wing (the wing is the whole class).  It will be a mix of priors/non-priors, ANG, and Reserve.  You will be with your Flight all the time, so make good relationships with those people.  You will also have to stratify each other, and report the top 3 and bottom 3 flight members to your Flight CC every week (I was not a fan of this).

Our first week was TFIT, which they got rid of now.  TFIT consisted of learning to march and proper procedures for everything at OTS.  Now that will just be integrated into TFOT, so you will be learning all of that at the same time you are starting classes and in-processing.  We didn’t meet our Flight Commanders until TFOT started the next week.  However, you might be meeting them right away now.  Your Flight Commander will be yours for the duration of your time at OTS and he/she will most likely be a Captain, possibly a 1st Lt.  He/She will be instructing you in your Flight Room, and you will have combined lectures with your whole class in the auditoriums as well.

Lights On is at 0430 everyday, no earlier than that.  If you need to wake up a little early, do it quietly and with the lights off.  Lights Out is at 2300 every night, but that doesn’t mean you need to stay up that late.  You can go to bed whenever you want.  You will have late nights a lot in the beginning trying to get prepared and everything, but it will lighten up and get easier as time goes on.  It’s really hard to stay awake during lectures, so a lot of people had cough drops and mints to help keep them awake.

Following Weeks

The first couple weeks are pretty rough, but it starts getting so much better by week 3. The staff stops yelling at you, and they go to just being stern when needed.  Then, as your class phases up throughout the course, they will start being nice to you.  But you have to always remember to not get complacent and not start slacking.  Our class phased up earlier than most because we were able to be professional and self-sufficient with our cadet chain-of-command.  They won’t phase you up if they have to constantly babysit and correct you.

Physical Training

We took our first PT test during the second week.  This is a baseline test.  It doesn’t count as your official score, but there was talk about letting it count, so people don’t have to worry about getting injured later and getting sent home for injuries.  So it is possible that this test may officially count for you.  We didn’t have any PT up to this test, so make sure you come prepared to pass.  There were a few people sent home because of failures on the baseline test.  Throughout the course, there is not much PT, and the PT is very short and weak.  Don’t expect to be physically challenged.  There were many people who complained about not having enough PT and getting out of shape there.  Well, I have to disagree with that.  I got into the best shape of my life there because I worked out every evening.  By the end of the course, I increased my PT score by 7 points and had my best run time yet.  Don’t rely on their PT program.  Make time for yourself to workout in the evenings.  You will have access to everything on the OTS campus once you get Phase I, which is pretty quickly.  There is a gym, a quarter-mile track, the “paper clip” track (this is a 1.5 mile track in the shape of a paper clip, and this is the track you will test on), and volleyball courts outside.  There will be a few early formation runs that are 2-3 miles long, but you stop along the way to do exercises.  The longest run was 6 miles, but again you make a lot of stops along the way to do exercises (this was the prop & wings run, which you do about halfway throughout the course).

Leadership Exercises and Challenges

My favorite parts of OTS were all the leadership exercises and challenges:  BELPS, LRC, EMLEX, AEF.  I also really enjoyed combatives.  We did combatives for a week first thing in the morning somewhere in the middle of the course.  I would have liked to have a lot more of it.  BELPS was out in the woods with different leadership challenges for each person in the group.  It was fun, and it was basically a precursor to LRC.  LRC is graded, and you do it toward the end of the course.  It consists of leadership challenges for each person in the group as well.  There are a lot of challenges with pools of water.  I got soaked, but not everybody does.  I fell in the water.  It was pretty funny.  EMLEX is an emergency exercise meant more for the ANG members.  It is only fun if you are one of the role-players, who play local victims of the disaster.  AEF was 3 days out in the woods.  Everybody has a job out there, except for the people who get to play Elysians (the locals).  There were about 20 of us picked by OTS leadership to be Elysians.  As Elysians, we really didn’t have any rules, and got to just have fun running wild and messing with both sides (everyone else was split into two teams according to Squadrons, and they had to run FOBs and had missions and whatnot).

Academics

There are two academic tests throughout the course.  They are multiple choice, and the second one is not comprehensive; it just covers the second half of academics.  Whoever the academic leader is in your Flight should be helping with study guides, practice tests, games, etc. to help everyone in the flight pass.  You will also have two papers and two briefings.  Your briefings will mirror your papers.  One is an informative briefing/background paper on a country or an aircraft, and one is an advocacy briefing/persuasive paper on a topic that has to do with the Air Force.  You will also be tested on the whole OTSMAN and aircraft in the HAWK (this test doesn’t count toward your academic grade, it just goes toward consideration for DG – same goes for your PT scores and your dorm inspection).  The official graded dorm inspection is toward the end of the course, but keep your dorm inspection-ready at all times because the MTIs and your Flight CC will randomly check your rooms throughout the course.

Leadership Positions

The other graded part of your time there is your graded leadership position.  Every person will get one sooner or later.  Each flight member will have an additional duty, however, it only counts as a graded position if you are the Wing POC for that additional duty.  The only additional duty position that is graded in your flight is the War-gaming/Intel POC.  This person has to give a briefing each week to the flight on important news for that week.  They also have to lead the simulated war-gaming exercise, which is a few hours one day toward the end of the course on laptops in a classroom.  They were also talking about making the Academic POC a graded leadership position because it takes a lot of work and a lot of time.  This was my additional duty.  I made study plans, study guides, practice tests, trivia games, had to make sure everybody was good to go for the tests, made sure study time was used efficiently, etc.

The other positions consisted of:

• Drill & Ceremonies POC – helps the flight with marching, prepping for drill/ceremonies, holds tryouts and chooses people for key personnel positions for the graduation ceremony.
• Grad Week POC – compiles information on grad week guests and DVs for the flight, helps coordinate commissioning ceremony.
• Awards Banquet POC – part of planning committee for the awards banquet.
• EMLEX POC – helps coordinate EMLEX.
• BELPS POC – helps coordinate BELPS.
• LRC POC – helps coordinate LRC.
• UDM – conducts pre-deployment training and pre-BELPS training, which includes teaching navigation, pace-counting, maneuvers, challenging procedures; also preps flight for AEF and conducts a bag-drop to make sure everyone has what they need for the “deployment.”
• Safety POC – reports any mishaps/injuries or safety issues in the flight.
• PTL – helps lead flight PT; may also be appointed a Squadron PTL, who leads their Squadron at Wing PT; helps people who are struggling.
• Mail POC – gets mail from the distribution center each week and delivers mail to their flight members.
• Logistics POC – makes sure everyone has what they need as far as mandatory items that you will need for various things/events throughout the course; gets MREs for everyone; passes out and keeps accountability of hard and soft cadet ranks for flight members
• Chaplain POC – coordinates with the Chaplain on morale events (weekly coffee socials and anything they would like to get the class to do together).
• Computer POC – handles computer issues in the classroom.
• Audio/Visual POC – takes pictures and videos throughout the course to compile for our class video at the end of the course.

The graded leadership positions that count, besides Wargaming/Intel POC and Wing POC for any of the additional duties, are the cadet leadership positions like Flight CC, Squadron CC, Group CC, Wing CC, and a couple other positions up there.  The only time you will volunteer for a position like this might be the first week.  After that, the OTS officers will choose the leaders for each week.  They will most likely choose someone they trust to set a good tone in the beginning.  Then, they might proceed to choose people who really need to be thrown into a leadership position in order to come out of their shell or people who are just struggling in different areas.  If you don’t get one of these leadership positions, you will get one at EMLEX or AEF in order to fulfill your graded leadership position obligation.

Dining Facility

Dining Facility – This was probably the worst part of each day.  It’s definitely not as bad as BMT though.  There’s no snake pit and they don’t hover over you and yell at you.  You also get 10 minutes to eat.  However, you do have to stand at attention and sidestep through the line, but you can grab whatever you want, and there are tons of desserts if you’re into that.  You will not be able to grab coffee or consume caffeine at all until you are in Phase II.  There are specific procedures for how to sit down, eat, and clean up/leave the table, so just read the OTSMAN on that.  It will make sense once you actually do it in person.  As far as the food, I thought it was terrible.  Some people actually enjoyed it.  I really think it contributed to my weight loss at OTS because I just really did not like the food, so I did not eat that much until we got Phase III and were allowed off the OTS campus on weekends (Phase IV is when you can go off base in civvies and you can leave the OTS campus after dinner on weekdays – if you get this phase, it will most likely be during the last week. It depends on your class. Our class got it earlier than that. Other classes never even got it.)

Advice

• Always do the right thing.  They are watching even if you think they aren’t around.  Sometimes they pop out of nowhere.  There are also cameras everywhere.
• Do not stress out or be super nervous going into this.  You will do great, and it is WAY easier and different than I was anticipating.  There is a reason you were selected, and those qualities are what’s going to get you through it.  Just think of it as another PME.
• Make friends with your flight members.  Do things together (volleyball, bowling, going out to eat).
• Study for your tests and pay attention to detail when doing your papers/briefings.  It’s not fun if you fail one of those, have to redo it, and meet with OTS leadership about it.
• Remember that at the end of it, you all are going to be 2d Lts.  Cadet rank is not real.  Treat others with dignity and respect.
• Get to know the OTS staff, including the MTIs.  You’re stuck with them for 8 weeks, and they are people too.
• Don’t try to go for DG or any other awards.  Be yourself, and just worry about graduating.
• Help out your roommate.  If your roommate is failing, then you are failing as a roommate.  However, do not carry others through the course.  There is a point where personal accountability and individual effort is important.
• Participate.  As priors, you have a lot of experience, often more experience than your Flight CCs, so share what you know and help the non-priors in your class.
• Don’t be overbearing or micromanaging.  Do your best to be a great leader, but remember that your classmates are adults, and everyone there is smart and is there for a reason.
• Take risks.  There is a lot of gray area in the OTSMAN and throughout OTS.  There is a reason for that.  They expect good leaders to take risks and make decisions.
• Be creative and think outside the box.  There are different ways to do things and you will not be told how to do everything at OTS.
• Go with the flow.  The MTIs and Flight CCs might contradict themselves or each other.  It’s okay.  This is what happens in a training environment, and what matters is how you handle those situations.