Indoc and More College Updates From Rochester Murphy Branch

Okay I'm finally getting around to making this post about my Indoc weekend like I told you guys I would. It was quite an experience. The first thing I want to say about everything I've done so far for ROTC is that it has all been completely unlike anything I have ever done before. Everything has been a totally new experience and a lot of the time a huge challenge. Doing physical training with these guys is completely different then anything I ever did on my own or in soccer or anything like that. They run you as hard as you can for as long as you can until they get every little ounce of energy out of you. Sunday morning with about 10 minutes left in PT I actually seriously hit a wall when I was running where I could barely keep my balance because my calves and thighs had no strength left, and I was just shifting my weight back and forth pretty much to try and drag my legs along. At the end of course, they don't let you rest, they make you stand at attention and they don't let you breathe through your mouth. My legs have never been as sore as they were on monday before.

Before Indoc I was very careful to pack everything I needed in my seabag nicely, and the first thing they did when we got there was take us out into the grass and make us dump everything out. They called it a check to make sure we had everything, but really it was just to try and torture us a little bit. They would dump our huge sea bags into the grass and kick everything around, scream in our faces to go and pick it up, and halfway through tell us to dump it again. This went on over and over for about an hour or two.

During meals they would march us over to the dining hall where we would eat in silence sitting at attention the whole time. As soon as we were done eating we had to get out our yellowjacket manuals and study them, holding them up with one hand and our elbows fully extended of course, until we were dismissed. We had to do a lot of studying the yellowjacket manuals and it was always like that, completely straight-armed. We're pretty much supposed to memorize everything in them, and they would ask us to recite things from it and most of the time we wouldn't be able to and we'd get an earful.

The sergeant instructors were all senior Midshipmen, also known as First Class Midshipmen, or MIDN 1/c. They would do whatever they could to make fun of any of us freshman. One kid was named Macdonald, and everytime one of the sergeant instructors said "Macdonald" he would have to say "bada da da daa, I'm lovin' it!" With me, it was everytime they asked me what my problem was, I would have to yell at the top of my lungs, "SLOW IN THE HEAD!" If I wasn't loud enough they'd ask again and again until they were satisfied. Also we had to refer to ourselves in the 3rd person, so if they asked you how you were feeling or something you had to say "This Midshipman is doing well!" Things like that.

We had to address the Sergeant Instructors as "Sergeant Instructor Midshipman First Class _____" everytime, and if you got it wrong you'd get an earful. If you got caught looking at one of them, you'd get yelled at for that, which made it very difficult to learn their names. They would say "ARE YOU EYEBALLING ME?! WHY ARE YOU EYEBALLING ME?! DO YOU THINK I'M CUTE?! DO YOU WANT TO TAKE ME OUT ON A DATE?! I'M NOT GOING ON A DATE WITH YOU NASTY YOU'RE FRIGGIN' DISGUSTING!"

I also only got 4 hours of sleep combined both nights, and other people got less. On sunday, as soon as I held still I would nod off. I actually fell down a little bit but caught myself when we were standing at attention because I started to fall asleep. They would assign us essays to write at nighttime that had to be exactly 300 words long, with every word underlined and numbered. During uniform inspection, a kid next to me who had a sloppy looking shave was getting yelled at and the sergeant instructor said "DO YOU HAVE SQUIRRELS LIVING IN YOUR FACE?!" Unfortunately I couldn't stop myself from laughing, and I was immediately surrounded by two of them who were each yelling in one of my ears at the top of their lungs. That kid next to me had to write an essay on why he had squirrels living in his face.

The whole weekend was pretty much just a 48 hour hell, and there were times where I didn't think I would be able to get through it. That being said, now that it's over I think it was a great experience and I'm glad I went through it. Some things were fun like some team-building exercises that we did. Both times, by the way, the group I was in outperformed all the other groups by far which was pretty cool. I've also made good friends with other kids in the Battalion, who are all pretty great people. There are definitely a couple who are kind of whacko, but others who I think I'll get along with really well. In general all the guys in the battalion are extremely admirable. If you asked just about any of them they would tell you without any reservations that they're here to serve their country and that they're extremely excited about it. The general attitude I've experienced so far with the whole group and all the people in it is just so impressive. Especially because for the most part it's completely 100% genuine, not just bravado.

On monday we had the September 11th run. At 6 AM we ran for 30-40 minutes all around campus as a Battalion, shouting cadences the whole way and waking everybody up. Afterwards there was a little ceremony around the flag and Captain Borden, who is the Commanding Officer for the whole unit gave us a little speech. It was really an hour to be part of the whole thing. He told us to never let seeing the flag raised become commonplace in our hearts, and that during our military careers there will be many times where during a flag raising we'll look around and probably won't see a single dry eye. It really is an honor and very humbling to be surrounded with these kind of people all the time. I was really nervous about what ROTC would be like, whether or not I really wanted to sacrifice a lot of the things I'll have to in order to do this, but now I'm definitely really excited about everything. So that's how everything is going here, my classes are going pretty well now. On monday I couldn't stay awake in them unfortunately because I was so tired from Indoc, but now it will be alright. I'm having an awesome time, but I do miss home and the family and Panda and everyone else quite a bit. I realize this post is really long, so sorry about that, but a lot of this ROTC stuff has been really interesting and I wanted to tell you guys about it.