Iiiiiiiiiiii'mmmmmmmmm BAaaaaaaaccckkk!!!!

So, a lot has happened since my last post. I went off to OCS to become an officer in the United States Marine Corps. Well, MISSION ACCOMPLISHED. I graduated and accepted my commission on August 8, 2009. That leaves me with one more year of law school, then I have to take and pass any state bar (leaning towards: GA, AL, VA, or TN right now). Once I'm licensed to practice law, then I ship back up to Quantico, VA off to The Basic School (TBS) for 6 months of officer training. I will be there with all the other Military Occupational Specialties (MOS). Then, I ship up to the Naval Justice School in Newport, RI.

Back to OCS. It was by far the hardest thing I've ever done. Everyone always asks, "why was it so hard? what was the hardest part?" etc. Well, there really was no one thing that I can point to. I prepared myself pretty well physically, so that wasn't the hard part. The classes weren't too hard, the tests were written on a high school level (allegedly). Being away from home and doing what you're told 24/7 for 10 weeks sucked, but was bearable. Getting yelled at, yelling back and strictly adhering to your superior's orders was tough (voice was gone w/in three days and didn't come back til week 6). But the coup de grace was most likely the sleep deprivation. I averaged probably 3.5 - 4 hrs a night...FOR 10 FREAKING WEEKS!!! Yes, I do not exaggerate. There were certainly nights where I slept 6 - 7 hrs (never 8 though, that'd be ridiculous). And on liberty I'd book a hotel with my rackmate Ricky Benning from Texas A&M and we'd sleep 10 - 12 hrs on a Saturday night. But for the most part, there was somewhere around 2-5 hrs every night for weeks and weeks on end. Everyone gets what's called "The Candidate Crud" for the first 4-6 weeks. Everyone is coughing, sniffling, sneezing, our voices are gone, you have a pounding headache for the first three weeks from yelling at the top of your lungs. You're pretty much broken down in every way possible. The idea is to strip you down to your core, your bare bones self and see if you have the fortitude it takes to succeed as a United States Marine Corps officer. So, while it absolutely sucked to go through it, I'm proud I finished. I'm proud to call myself a Marine.