I got carried away with BOLC II and got really busy. On the whole, it ended up being not worth the investment in time. Taking people away from their families for that long, investing that many Staff Sergeants and Captains as cadre, and spending all that money didn’t seem worth it. I got better training than most people because I ran a range, which was a good experience. Despite that, the last week was fun. I’ve attached a picture of me at the top of Mount Scott, the highest point in the area.

For the rest of the course, we got classes and for the final week ran mission simulations. During our capstone exercise, I had tons of fun playing opposing forces, the bad guys, for the other platoons. First, I played a village sheikh for a negotiation which was great. I got to see what it looked like from their perspective. They came in pretty heavy, with a lot of guys coming in to pull security and I felt very threatened because no one was talking to me yet. The negotiator they picked did a good job though of building a relationship and addressing my concerns. Then, another platoon assaulted our town. I had a SAW light machine gun and since I could do whatever I wanted I did my best Arnold Schwarzenegger impersonation, running across open fields firing from the hip. When we were running missions, I was a team leader for all of it and enjoyed that job. During one assault I was the first guy jumping up and going “Let’s go Alpha team follow me!” which was awesome.

After BOLC II, I flew home, had two days there, and then had to report on Sunday to Benning. I am excited to be at the home of my branch, infantry, and excited to be starting IOBC. It should be lots of good training and lots of motivated people.