August 31, 2009

After eating morning chow with Chief Pena, we headed off to our first classes, CPR and First Aid.  Here the company learned basic first aid skills that are to be used in case of emergency.  Bravo learned how to treat injuries such as broken bones, joints, and open wounds. The company worked on executing these techniques as well on their shipmates.  The CPR portion of the class instructed recruits how to provide CPR and rescue breathing to adults, children, and infants.  The highlight of the day came when Bravo was invited to destroy the squad bay of a junior company, Foxtrot.  Due to a poor squad bay inspection, the junior company was treated to a Bravo storm that included messed up racks, towels everywhere, and overall destruction of their squad bay.  It was fun for Bravo, probably not so much for Foxtrot.  In the afternoon, Bravo worked hard on close order drill for our test tomorrow.  To finish the night, Bravo had a company run and was treated to personal time to work on uniforms and read their mail.  Tomorrow is a full day and includes a uniform inspection, close order drill (marching) test, and our seamanship final exam.  All of these are very important and Bravo must work hard to succeed in all of them in order to graduate.

September 1, 2009

Bravo Company had one of their best days of training so far today.  At seamanship, we learned about line handling and took our final exam.  Our instructor, Petty Officer Martin was disappointed in the test scores however.  After the test was completed, we worked on line handling.  Line handling included throwing a mooring line from the boat to the pier.  After seamanship, we had our very important Battalion Officer uniform inspection.  The inspection went very well and both Lt. Cromer and Chief Pena were very impressed with our uniforms.  Immediately following our inspection, we had our close order drill test, which is required for graduation.  We did well on the test overall, but had minor flaws that earned us a 8/10.  This is a respectable score and all our company commanders were pleased.  We had our second water circuit workout as well today.  Swimming in the pool is always enjoyable for recruits and is a break from the outdoors heat.  Out improvement as a company has really earned the respect of our company commanders and leads us to believe we will soon be one of the best companies on the regiment.

September 2, 2009

After a rough morning in which we lost our colors, we headed to seamanship.  While here, we practiced our line handling skill on a simulated boat platform.  The company practiced following mooring commands and worked as a team to successfully moor the boat to the pier.  Also at seamanship we had the competition to determine who would get the seamanship award.  The competition included all we had learned in seamanship such as knot tying and line handling.  Even after a terrible morning full of slacking off and being punished, Bravo was able to pull themselves together and have a pretty good day.  We spent the remainder of the day getting in touch with out units to straighten out the final details of our big transition into the fleet.  In the evening, males went to the barber shop to get their “high and tight” haircuts and the rest of the day was spent painting the squad bays and performing uniform maintenance.

September 3, 2009

Hoping to start today’s morning off better that yesterday, we headed to our “Work Life” class.  In this class, we learned about the services provided to help families who have family members in the service deal with their lifestyles.  These services include counseling, help with money problems, and other needs these families may have.  The recruits also started on the company ditty bags today.  These bags are painted by the company art team to represent each company commander, and then one to tell the story of the company as a whole.  In the afternoon, we attended a class about contraception and STDs.  In this class, we learned about the many STDs and their severity.  We also learned about how to prevent and avoid them as well as pregnancy by means of contraception.  This class was very important due to the prominence of sex in today’s society.  The night was spent practicing for graduation and for the final exam tomorrow.  The exam will be required for recruits to graduate and will also be the determining factor as to whether the recruit will be allowed to go on off base liberty Saturday. 

September 4, 2009

Our morning started off with our final exam.  The studying paid off because all recruits successfully passed the exam.  After the exam was complete, we stayed in the classroom and watched a few videos.  The first video was off when we got “picked up” by our company commanders our first week here.  Looking back, we were pretty sorry in terms of marching, responding, and being productive members of the Coast Guard.  The second sets of videos were mainly to motivate and inspire recruits.  We marched in Alpha’s graduation today as well.  With this graduation, Bravo Company is now officially the senior company on the regiment.  After graduation we headed to the much anticipated confidence course.  The confidence course is an obstacle course consisting of ropes to climb, walls to get over, and logs to hurdle.  With the help of their shipmates, all recruits were able to complete the course.  In the evening we were able to take a tour of the Dependable, a 210 foot cutter based out of Cape May.  This tour allowed recruits going to cutters to see what living, eating and working on the ship would be like.  After the tour we headed back to the squad bays to work on our uniforms for off base liberty tomorrow.  Now that bravo is the senior company on the regiment, we must set the standards for the junior companies to follow.

Septembet 5, 2009

The day all recruits have been waiting for, off base liberty.  While off base, many recruits headed to Rio Grande and Wildwood, both hot spots for recruits.  Most recruits made a trip to Wal Mart as well to purchase prepaid cell phones to call home on.  Recruits found the opportunity to eat off base nice as well.  Many recruits went to buffets to get their fill of both Chinese and Japanese foods.  While off base recruits were able to ride roller coasters, go to the movies, go shopping and just relax in general and get a small glimpse of the outside world again.  While off base was amazing, recruits must get back to the grind of basic training and finish our final week strong!  All recruits are looking forward to graduation when they will be able to see their families and friends once again after a very long 8 weeks.