Whiskey 182 weekly journal posted March 2, 2010

22FEB10

Today was an exciting day for Whiskey Company.  We earned our colors, passed our Battalion Commander Uniform Inspection, and had seamanship class.  We are all excited about getting our orders this week. 

We’re working better as a team!  We still have room for improvement, but Chief Reno has really inspired us all to do better.  It’s strange, but disappointing our Lead Company Commander feels like the equivalent of disappointing a father figure.  All of our CC’s are figures of authority, and we look to them for guidance, but Chief Reno really talks to us.  He’s a philosopher in his own way; he uses words to motivate more times than not.  He’s put a lot of effort into our training!

The colors team performed well today.  They were very proud of their success.  Along with our colors today we received streamers for participation in the blood drive, and for our mid-term score (Everyone Passed on the First Attempt!)

23FEB10

The company received dress uniforms today.  The weather was gloomy, it rained all day.  We went to seamanship class today and discussed the radio procedures for talking with mariners.  Tomorrow is our mid-term for seamanship.  We hope to ace it, if we can all pass seamanship that will be another pennant.  We are all so excited about receiving orders this week.  We have 25 days left, so we are counting down….

24FEB10

We attended more classes today and discussed the requirements for being a coxswain and engineer among other things.  We then went to take our seamanship for our midterm.  We all did well on it.  Then we got to shoot off flares, and we all found that to be a lot of fun.  We had cycling too.  It was our last cycle workout, and it was great.  Chaplain Barry came to talk to us tonight.  She told us to keep our Spirits up and not to be discouraged if we don’t get the assignments our hearts were set on.  We sang cadence as a company today as we marched.  This was a lot of fun, we sounded and looked like a company. 

25FEB10

TODAY WE RECEIVED OUR ORDERS!!!  We all piled onto the quarterdeck as Chief Reno called them out to us.  Some were less than thrilled; however, most couldn’t be happier with their assignments.  It makes it a little difficult to focus on training since we’ve received them, but we are doing our best.  It’s an exciting time though, a new beginning of sorts.  Some of us will get the chance to see the world.  Next week we’ll hopefully earn on-base liberty.  We all want to call home and talk about our assignments. 

We found out that we did very well on our midterms for seamanship.  We did better than any other company in the last few years according to our seamanship instructor, that was a proud moment. 

26FEB10

We got small pox vaccines today.  It wasn’t a terrible experience, but the after effects are less than great.  We are all going to be extra cautious in taking care of the immunization site.  Some of us made our first 5 minute phone calls to our families tonight to tell them about our assignments.  It was a wonderful five minutes.  The rest of us will have our calls later. 

It snowed again today, but luckily it wasn’t a blizzard.  It was enough though to make marching more uncomfortable.  Petty Officer Morgan sang Cadence for us again tonight.  That was another highlight of the day.  We all had a little more pride in our march, although we still have plenty to improve upon.  Maybe now we can refocus and work toward our on base liberty next week. 

Tomorrow is Pugil Stick Fights, and we are all excited about it.  In class today we discussed travel entitlements.  We’ve got to figure out how we are getting to our first units. 

27FEB10

The pugil stick matches were very exciting.  We had a lot of fun both participating in the matches and cheering on our shipmates.  Even our CC’s got into it.  Petty Officer Morgan did an awesome job of getting his fighters pumped up-he was definitely the most enthusiastic; although, all three of our CC’s appeared to be having a good time watching us swap blows. 

We marched and sang cadence.  Petty Officer Morgan introduced us to a new song about the life of a coastie.  Singing it and marching really made us feel like Guardians.  The part of the song that talks about three weeks left really struck deep with us.  We’ve come a long way, but we still have a little further to go.  Our Mentor came to see us today.  He told us he saw a new group sitting in front of him today, when compared to five weeks ago.  That was a proud moment for us.  I think we are finally getting it together. 

28FEB10

19 Days until graduation.  Its hard to believe we’ll be graduating in three weeks from last Friday.  We ordered company T-shirt and coins tonight.  It was surreal.  Here we are making travel arrangements for reporting to our first unit and ordering mementoes for our time at Cape May.  It isn’t until we look at the new recruits coming in that we see how far we have come in such a short time.  It really sank in tonight that our time here is limited.

Chief Reno had a great discussion with us today on what it means for us to be committed.  He believes we’re all committed and feels we should all succeed.  I hope we don’t disappoint him. 

We also had a great workout at the Gym today, working out always makes us feel accomplished.  We practiced Manual Of Arms today as well- and getting ready for our Manual of Arms Proficiency Exam next Tuesday.  Everyone is a little stressed about it.  We want to do well so we can get on-base liberty.  We’re all hoping that our practice will pay off. 

Coming into week six our training will take a turn.  Its supposed to go quickly and its all important information we need to know for our first assignment.  I’m hoping we all do what we are supposed to and get less Incentive Training, so that we can focus our efforts on retaining the information.  I have no doubts we’ll do just that.  We really have come along as a team.   

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