Oh yes. That’s right. Basic. Military. Training. At GSD&M, I work on the U.S. Air Force account. There are a few of us who are somewhat new to the account, and our client offered to have us spend 2.5 days at Lackland Air Force base in San Antonio, TX for a tour, observation of Basic Military Training and maybe even a little participation. So, I joined Jennie (my boss), Keri (Media Planner) and Lane (Account Services) on the adventure. The first day we met the recruiter who setup the trip, TSgt. Bellamy and our guide from the Office of Public Affairs at Lackland AFB, Ed Castillo. We took a leisurely tour around the base, had a few beers at the golf course and let our minds run wild thinking about what we might be doing on day two. We were 100% adventurous and 100% under prepared.The second day began at 0600 hours, and didn’t end until 0200 that night (or rather, the following morning). I can laugh about it now, and know I had a blast, but it was one of the longest, hardest days of my life.

We started out on the Tactical Assault Course, running through a course of drainage pipes, crouching behind blockades, climbing over walls and eventually crawling on our bellies in the dust on a long path under barb-wire and up a hill. From there we were given mock M16’s and went on a 1.5 mile hike “with aggressors” with some 2nd week trainees. The concept was pretty basic - keep your eyes open for enemies, play ‘telephone’ whenever we saw anything (”enemies to the North”, “green smoke to the East” - pass it down the line of trainees), hit the ground whenever attacked, and then gather around to listen to the Sgt. explain what we did right or wrong after it was over. That was one of my favorite parts of the day, since we actually got to interact with the trainees. From there we went back to tour mode - taking a look around another part of the base, seeing the K9 training units, the vets offices and finally some barracks. The squadron barracks are 100% self contained, they can eat, sleep, march drills and have classes all in one building. We took a look around and then had some lunch with the 232nd Squadron.

It’s at this point we head into the hardest part of our day. The Confidence Course is a 21 obstacle course that trainees visit in their fourth week. I think we went through 15, running from each obstacle to the next (Parallel Ropes over water, Huge Wall, Ledge, Balance beams, Traditional Ladder, Reverse Ladder, Rappel down a wall, Rappel up a wall, Ladder/Knotted Rope, Single rope over water, Marine obstacle, Ladder/Tube/Fireman’s Pole, Weaver, and lastly the Rope swing over water). We all worked our butts off. Our teacher, Sgt. Lord (or Sgt. Dreamy as my co-workers have dubbed him) was a machine. He did each obstacle at least once to demonstrate, usually a second time to build our confidence and then managed to physically push us through most of them. I could never have gotten across the single rope/water obstacle had he not been talking me through it. Check out the pictures, they tell a great story.

The night ended by having some more beers at the golf course, some dinner in downtown San Antonio and a few hours at the River Walk (very cool). I learned that the Alamo is RIGHT downtown and that only getting 5 hours of sleep after a huge amount of physical activity and a lot of alcohol is not quite enough. The pictures from Friday are pretty painful. The graduation was really neat, albeit freezing, and even after some McDonald’s coffee and hash browns, we all just wanted to get back to Austin and crawl into our beds. In the end, I am proud of what we accomplished - considering not one of us are athletes. The four of us are 10x times closer than we were when we left, and I know I have a greater understanding of Basic Training. Mostly I understand that I admire the physical and mental dedication it takes to go through Basic Training and that I love being a civilian. :)