Blue Line Ceremony
This week kicked off with the blue line ceremony early in the morning. Unfortunately for our ceremony, the audio was kinda janky and the whole event wasn’t as inspiring and as great as I had thought it would be. The commander of OTS even pointed out that it was not what it should have been for our class. Regardless, it’s a fun morning and you will likely meet your flight commander afterwards.
Graded Leadership Positions (GLP)
There is a good chance this will also be the day you either choose or get selected for certain leadership positions within your flight. I was expeditionary skills, and if you are not a prior I would not recommend it. You will learn a lot, but you will have to give hours of briefs and practicals with little knowledge on the material, and it’s graded. If you’re a prior, go for it, as you should have a background in a lot of the information. Certain leadership positions will require more work, some less, but it is kind of luck of the draw. In addition, there will be wing leadership positions that will be handed out. These students will be in charge of the entire student wing and will report to the various flight/squadron commanders on events that occurred throughout the week. I was never in one of these positions, but the best advice I have is delegate and follow the chain of command.
Project X
This was also the week we did Project X. Don’t get too comfy in your dorm rooms and listen to your flight leader. In 99% of things, report to your flight leader first. Chain of command is insanely important, and our squadron did poorly on that exercise by ignoring the chain of command.
Physical Fitness Baseline (PFB)
If we scored over a 90 on our PFB we were able to write our own memorandum to get approval to do our own workouts. Between an 80 and 90 we had to work out with the flight, below an 80 and we had to be part of a special group that does their own workout plan with OTS staff. My roommate was a part of that plan and I would recommend not doing that. As I have said, come prepared.
Pennant Test
The pennant test is essentially a march around the OTS complex with your flight to determine whether you are capable of marching in a flight without the MTI’s around. If you don’t pass, you have to march in details which means marching in groups of no more than four people. I believe in total only 4 flights out of 16 didn’t earn their pennant. As long as you practice your drill on the weekend everyone should do fine.
Formation Run (The Gauntlet)
There is also a formation run called the gauntlet that we did this week. It was a formation run where we were stopped and asked questions about the OTSMAN. If we answered the question right, we got to keep running. If not, we had to do a workout (planks, flutter kicks, etc).
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