Day 23

This morning I attended my first, and last, Physical Training here at COT. As you may recall, I got hurt over the first weekend, and they started PT the second week. The third week I was still on profile for Monday and Tuesday, and the rest of the week there was no PT. Monday was the 5K, and today was the last PT. So I can say I got at least one in!!

After breakfast we had to present our briefing. It was an informative briefing, not persuasive. My topic was “Water and the Arab/Israel Conflict.” The rules were it had to be between 5 to 9 minutes. Less or more was an instant fail. A single word that was persuasive, like “I think…” was an instant fail. There is a video screen in the back of the room as well as the front, so you had a “crutch” – but if you used it more than just in passing, you were dinged for that.

I was the last one to present. For reasons that none of us can understand, 70% of the class busted on time. THERE IS A LARGE CLOCK IN THE BACK OF THE ROOM, PEOPLE!!! In any event, I did my brief, and as I was doing it I realized that the slides were too busy for the Air Force – they want no more than seven bullets, with no more than seven words per bullet. In addition, I ended the brief by saying, “This concludes my brief. Are there any question?” The Flt/CC asked “Did you say ‘Brief’ or ‘Briefing’?” DOH!! I said Brief instead of briefing, which is an automatic point deduction. Bottom line: between the busy slides and the wrong ending, I ended up with a “High Sat” (high satisfactory) insetad of an “Excellent.”

Afterwards, we put on our Mess Dress (that is the suit jacket with the silver bars on the shoulders and all the other “Bling”) for our class picture – I haven’t had a class picture since 8th Grade (that was in 1976, for those keeping count). Next, we went back to our flight room to get a briefing on the LRC (Leadership Reaction Course). You may recall me complaining about the fact that when I was on medical profile, the class did something called Project X that I had to observe rather than participate in. The LRC is held on the same course, but there is a designated leader and his leadership skills are evaluated by staff. We will be doing this over two days, completeing a total of 16 courses. I can’t wait!

The day was capped off with three of the most boring hours of non-graded classes EVER. It was torture. After dinner, there was a meeting of all the chaplains and chaplain candidates who wanted to know more about Judaism and the sensitivities they need to have in dealing with Jewish airmen. It was great. I invited them all to my last Bible Study (to be held on Saturday at 0815) and they asked if it could be followed by another such informative meeting. I was honored.