Greetings from Air Force OTS!!!

I am still alive! I am sorry I have not been able to touch base with hardly any of you. My days are incredibly crazy! Everyday starts at 0445hrs when I wake up, and we begin physical training six days a week. After that we eat, shower, and are in the classroom or the field all day long. After that we do homework all night and then clean our dorm (I do the windows). Then we work on homework until we are done for the night...if I am lucky, 2300hrs. There are nights when I've been up past midnight working on homework, just to get up at 0445hrs. It's crazy. I've been on that schedule for about a month. The weekends are nice because we can sleep in an extra hour. It makes all the difference in the world. I have never pushed myself so hard mentally, physically, and even spiritually. It's kind of cool testing the limits of what you're able to do.

We are learning a ridiculous amount of information. We have so much homework to do. It's really crazy. On top of academics, we practice marching, doing our customs and courtesies, and other military doctrine stuff. It is definitely way harder than I had anticipated. It is way more time consuming than I thought. I've not had access to my personal email or this blog since I've been here, and I am only on it now because I am at the Library on base (a privilege we just got on Friday). I can only use my cell phone at night, not during the duty day. The whole point for being so busy, is to learn how to manage your time and prioritize. I am really enjoying it; the lack of sleep is my hardest daily challenge....trying to stay awake in a 1530hrs lecture hall in a big comfy chair is next to impossible.

There is so much I could tell you, like only having 7 minutes to eat my meals, 2 minutes to shower, sitting at modified attention, superman drills (changing one entire outfit and into another in 1min 15secs), or having to recite back quotes that we have to memorize on a daily basis. Some of the negatives include: lack of sleep, I bombed my first test on my OTS Manual (all of the military customs and courtesies -- doesn't count towards my final grade, whew!), not having "free time", and a little bit of "boredom." We feel it would be very similar to a minimum security prison, only with stuff to do. As of now, we aren't allowed to go beyond the OTS Complex, which includes about three buildings, and even to walk in between those buildings, we have to be escorted by an upperclassman or commissioned staff. Some of the good things, I did really well on my first academics test, my flight of 14 is working well together, I'm doing the color guard, I'm helping coordinate the upper class' graduation day, and I also got qualified as an Expert Marksman on the Beretta M9 (service pistol for the AF). There was only one other guy in our flight who got that, and five total in our squadron (27 people). I was pretty stoked, since it was only my 2nd time shooting a pistol. As a flight, we tied the record for most mission completes on a "medium ropes course" in the history of OTS, and we all did fairly well on our baseline evaluation for leadership this past week in the field. All of the leadership and team development stuff is awesome and a ton of fun!

I also got my "call sign" this week. I didn't pick it, and I wasn't in the room or even aware they were giving me one, but it is "Preach" (short for Preacher). I was pretty stoked about that as well, but please keep praying for strength in that area. I do have a community of one other person in my flight, and maybe one or two others peppered through the Wing (80 people). They allow us to go to Chapel on Sunday's, so I go for Sunday School and the Contemporary Service. That has been pretty good. I'm going to try and start a small group one night a week in our dorm as soon as our upper class graduates this month.

I miss you all a ton, but I have been encouraged by all the notes my mom mailed off from my going away party, and they have always come right at the exact moment that I needed to hear it. I thank you all for sharing your favorite verses with me and all of the encouragement. It really means a lot! I hope you are doing well, and I hope that as I can hear from you all soon. I will keep praying for you guys and your situations, and please know that I do.

I am going to try and come back here tomorrow and get some pictures up here. You'll enjoy my shaved head from the first couple of days. I'm starting to get a little bit of hair back, but slowly. Hang in there, and I will hopefully catch up with you again very soon! Thank you so much for all of your prayers; I have no doubt they helping me in ways that I couldn't even begin to understand.

FYI...It looks like I'll be going to San Antonio, TX for Navigator training and not Pensacola. I'll still be hitting Colorado in there somewhere, but I'm not sure about the timing of any of it.