There's an Acronymn for That

ODS Week 1

Well the first week is behind me as far as ODS goes. Honestly, all the blogs I have read seemed to make it out far worse than it really has been. Let me give you a run down of the week as best as I can. Since all the days have seemed to run together, I'll just be as accurate as I can.

Saturday (May 12)
After saying goodbye to my wife and kids, I boarded the plane for Atlanta, GA. There wasn't a whole lot to that trip. Pensacola to Atlanta is like riding down the street in a nice sports car. Nice, smooth and fast. The plane landed and I boarded the trip to Detroit. There was the first snafu in the process. The plane that was going to take me from Atlanta to Detroit had a malfunction and arrived late. This seemed to be no huge problem, because I would have enough time to get to my connection that would take me to Rhode Island. Unfortunately, they kept pushing back the time. I arrived in DTW, and ran from Concorse A to Concorse B. This was no small run, and I had 11 mins to make it. Unfortunately I arrived 1 minute to late. I had to board the next flight to Rhode Island which was 3 hours later. I used that time wisely, studying my handy-dandy Navy Knowlege and listening to the Fire Alarm at DTW go off for 15 minutes, as people ran around in some sort of panic. Hey, I'm a firefighter. If there's no smoke, there's no fire. Usually.

Well the rest of the trip was pretty uneventful. I met some prospective ODS students at the airport and we caught a Taxi to NAS Newport. This took an $85 cab fare down to $20 a piece! Praise the Lord,

Sunday (May 13)

The morning was my own. I went to the liturgical service on base. It wasn't too bad, but really seemed short. (About 30 mins total). I had lunch with one of my Liberty classmates and met some people that were in my company. At 1730, the first briefing with our class Lieutenant took place. Lt. Fromnecht. He is a really nice guy and really wants us to learn how to be Naval officers. He's very patriotic and has had some very inspiring words for each of us to remember. The first briefing consisted of Navy paperwork. As they say in the Navy if it isn't written down, it didn't happen. (Hence the reason for this blog).

One of the things I had dreaded most was the weigh in. I had worked for several months to get to the right weight. I had checked myself on the scale and saw I was 2 pounds heavier. Since the height measurer measured me an inch shorter than normal (This meant I had to be five pounds lighter than I initially thought) This was tough. I was stressing big time! But by the time I got on the scale I was within standards! Praise the Lord!!

Monday (May 14)
More paperwork. We also learned some marching basics from our Class LT. Nothing hard so far. We had lunch, learned some lunchroom procedures and at the end of the day the Lieutenant told us to be ready at 4:30am. I was pretty ready for 3:45 since that is what I had read.

Tuesday (May 15)
0430 on the nose. Our class chief Chief Hebert woke us up screaming to get up. He ran down the hall banging on the doors saying, "On the Line!" We had no idea what to do. But we did as he said. We did something that day. But I really don't remember. Oh yeah. We got our PT gear. Or was that Monday? I don't remember.

We learned a bunch of Navy terms. Here are some I had never heard of before (P-way=Passageway, or Hallway; Scullery=Spider looking Dish Return; On your face=Do Pushups). Anyway, our class chief is really quite good at his job. He is tough and stern, but he is not afraid to show that he is a human being. Congratulations to him too, because he just graduated from college. Maybe he'll become an officer now and go to ODS. :)

This was also the uniform shop day. This involved 5-6 hours of standing in line being fitted for everything the Navy would require you to wear. Fun fun fun!

Wednesday (May 16)
Lots of lectures on basic things. Navy knowledge. Also this day was the Navy's third class swim test. It was really a lot of fun. I passed (Thankfully). There was a 10 meter jump, a front facing five minute float a swim and inflating the khakis. It was a fun!

We really began to do a lot of drilling these days. We learned a bunch of marching movements. A lot of neat things.

Thursday (May 17)
This was the first PRT test. I'm still not sure how I did. But no one said I failed. At least not yet. We also had to begin prepping our Khaki uniforms for inspection. This was much more difficult than I had imagined. There is something every Naval officer needs to do. That is take pride in his uniform. There are a bunch of new terms to learn here too. Gig line, brass on brass, IP's=Irish Penance=String as well as other terms. We also had an inspection rehersal too.

Friday (May 18)
Uniform inspection day. All the time I spent looking at my Navy knowledge would come in handy in this one inspection. Lectures most of the morning. The rest of the time was spent prepping uniforms. Our company was late. This is not good. Our chief said he'd make us pay....

I did pass the uniform inspection. Because we were late, I did not get to adjust my uniform so my gig line was off, my belt was off and my laces were not tucked in correctly. Ughhh! Oh well, I passed! We thought we could wear our uniforms. Unfortunately, not. We hadn't earned them yet.

Saturday (May 19)
Today started at 4:30 like normal to the sound of an air raid siren. We were led from deck to deck doing PT (Pushups, Squats, Situps, led outside to the SUYA (Don't ask); the Cookie Jar and the Rose Garden (aka Sand Pit). This wasn't too terrible, but my abs hurt. After this awakening. We were told we had earned the right to wear our Khaki's! Woo Hoo! Our company looked pretty good marching in them. However, one thing, the SHOES HURT!!!

See ya'll next week! For update number 2!