TFOT FY2019 – Week 3 and 4

Cadet Profile

• Prior Enlisted
• 24 TRS

Week 3

Academics

We started this week with Academic Assessment 2 and feedback for Paper 1.  I believe this is the week we gave our first briefings as well.  They also assigned us Paper 2 and Briefing 2 this week.  If we were not in our flight rooms for academic lessons, we were in the auditorium.  Throughout the course you’ll be blessed with lectures from Mr. Chip Houghton.  I wish I could hire this guy to narrate my life because he is one of the funniest, most informative and positively inspiring speakers I have ever heard.  He will teach you Air Force heritage and he retired from the AF so he knows what he’s talking about and knows what it means to serve.  Any time you see Heritage on your schedule, you best believe that will be the best briefing of the day and you’ll have a good time.  Be prepared, he likes to play some random music as he enters the auditorium try to maintain your bearing.

HELPS

We did HELPS this week and we had our second and final ILO.  We went to a big open field and had to perform tasks and finish missions.  We got dirty, we got to a station that required a low crawl or high crawl.  It sucked and added nothing to our “training,” but it isn’t as bad as anything most prior service folks did in BMT if they came in prior to 2014, so, just get through it.

Each station has a different scenario to complete so just have fun with it.  Delegate the necessary things, take feedback, and maintain control of your people, but don’t micromanage.  Once you see how one ILO is done, you’ll figure it out.  GRADING IS HIGHLY SUBJECTIVE.  Be prepared for people to get butt-hurt that they got a worse grade despite them feeling they did better than you, or someone else.  It all depends on the instructor who grades you, just like your career depends largely on who’s working for you and who you’re working for, everything is subjective.  Prior service folks will get a DD-214 briefing this week or in week 4, it feels odd to be active duty and holding your own DD-214…

A very important note came to mind after reading this one.  Being a successful officer isn’t just about how good you are, it is about how effectively you carry out the vision and intent of the officer you are working for.  The ideal officer can predict what your boss wants and will get it done even before being asked.  It doesn’t matter how “good” or “bad” your boss is, all that changes is how hard you may have to work to execute their intent.  Even if you have a really bad boss your life may suck for a while, but a truly effective officer will somehow manage to make their boss a better leader and ultimately make their boss a better officer.

This all ties back to the theory of tiered leadership (that’s probably the wrong term).  It is easy to be a leader to your subordinates; that is the bare minimum of what we are all called to do.  It is slightly more difficult to lead and inspire your peers.  Inspiring your fellow Lieutenant to do the right thing can take a lot of skill.  The final tier of leadership is learning how to lead and inspire your superior.  Being the officer that you are, how effective you are at inspiring your boss to be a better leader can take the most skill of all.  (SR)

Week 4

This week marked our last academic tests:  Academic Assessment (AA) 3 and Student Publication Test (SPT) 2.  Again, prioritize your time here.  One test is required to grad, the other is just  a way to keep your nose in your OTSMAN or try to get another privilege you want such as base privileges or civilian clothes on weekends, etc.

WELPS

This week we also did WELPS, and at this point folks should start knocking out their GLPs as such.  WELPS is pretty low threat.  Go to the forest compound where you will later do AEF.  Start at point A, navigate to other points, do things as required.  Make sure you have a few people in your flight that are good with the compass and pace counts, because you’re walking through a forest.  100 paces due south isn’t easy when you’re in a thick wooded area…  make sure you’re proficient and working as a team.

AFEX

We also conducted AFEX this week which is a computer based war game program similar to a normal RTS game like age of empires, but way more in depth.  It can be fun if you let it be, just stick to your objectives.  Some folks think starting a war is the objective, it isn’t.  Do what you’re told and deal with any injects as they come.  Keep doing PT on your own, pushups and situps in flight room, and go for a run if you can a few days per week.