All,
Just returned from ACES. Judges are going to have to give it a "so-so" rating. Like most of the others who attended this past week (Jan 7-12), I left there thinking that they could have accomplished everything in much less than a week.
Monday was used to complete the physical. Be prepared to spend all day waiting in the NOMI lobby. Maybe bring something to read. The Marine and Navy stashes who escorted us brought their API books. The day started with 26 ACES Students and ended with 22. Four people were NPQ'd for eye related problems. Two guys had 20/40 vision, one was slightly color-blind, and another (SNFO) was NPQ'd because he failed the vision test with his glasses on. Some tips for enduring the Monday physical...
1. Don't drink water all night expecting to be able to take the urine test first thing in the morning. I wasn't called for that until about 1030.
2. Prepare to wait, and be patient. The staff at NOMI sometimes were short towards ACES students. Make like a an umbrella, and let it roll right off.
Tuesday and Wednesday were a bit messy. It seemed like everywhere we went (for tours and such) was not prepared to have us. Some people even seemed suprised to see us.
When you visit OCS on Wednesday (or Tuesday) take a good look at the DIs. They will pop up later in the trip. We actually ran into them at Seville's on Thursday night. A couple of the ACES students bought shots for Gunnery Sergeant Burns. He drank them!
The T-34 Flights were great. There were about four students who did not get to fly because of the weather. They do aerobatics and try their best to make the student blow chunks (or "boot" as one of the students put it) Don't worry though, either you will or you wont. This isn't really something you can control.
Still trying to remember most of the week, so I'll cut his off here. If I remember anything, I'll drop a note.
Oh yeah, the PRT ans Swim Screen. Not a pass/fail situation. We didn't even run. No big deal, you just do the PRT and find out what you need to improve on, then the swimming is just an introduction to the four basic strokes.
Just get past Monday (the physical) and the rest is a vacation which includes a free T-34 ride.
BTW, got a free CD-ROM with a T-34 flight sim for use with M-soft's Flight sim 98.
Gotta run.
Derrill
