Friday: D&C, CIF, and more briefs...and HW!

Friday was another busy day. We formed up at 0515 somewhat successfully. We immediately started learning basic D&C such as the various forms of attention, right/left face and about face. Those that were prior service and active in the past 2 years were allowed to sleep in until 0730. We then had some chow and met up at CIF. We were suppossed to get all of TA 50 but we got lucky. No more rucks sucks!! Just assault packs like those we had at camp (if you went to camp in 2009). Plus all of our molle gear was brand new which was exciting. I'm not too sure why got it all issued now since we don't go to the field for another 2 weeks but thats ok. We then learned some more marching and how to give commands marching. Thankfully those in ROTC or prior service got to go first and then leave.

We were given 2 hours to get some chow and drop off all of our gear and be at the auditorium for a long afternoon of briefs. We had briefs on how to wear the ACU, proper regs for hair both male/female, the blood bank came to talk to us about giving blood next week after the PT test, housing talked about their services and then we had the saftey briefing for the weekend. Everyone got to leave excpet for the nurses.

We got to have our own hour and half brief that lasted until 1800 on Friday evening! It was pretty interesting though. We met Maj Connor who is the liason for OBLC and all the medical centers we will be going to. She spoke about the nurse residency program which is 25.5 weeks long and the opportunity to switch duty stations with someone who is equal to you in experience. She also strongly emphasized the fact that if you do not pass your PT test here you can not go overseas and will be reassigned. I wanted to ask if that meant you get get their spot but I thought it would be rude and I'm happy with Walter Reed. She gave us info cards to fill out that included a spot for our top 3 choices of med/surg wards at our hospital. I found this very exciting since peds counts as med/surg :) She explained that NO ONE will be deployed within the first year no matter how badly you want to go. Also we got HW. We have to write a letter to our chief nurse by next thursday and we will be taking the Trauma Nurse Core Course on the weekend of Dec 11-13. We were given the text to study and learn until then. It is a requirement to get this certification while here. I have only flipped through it but it appears to be a lot to learn.

What I learned:

-There are about 150 nurses in our class. 90% of whom are direct commission and over 50% are going to either Germany or Hawaii

-Its good to have a last name at the beginning of the alphabet. We did CIF alphabetically and those at the end didn't get their stuff for over 2 hours

-We actually finish OBLC on Dec 7th and the last 2 weeks we are just with the nurses and the very last day is our mass casualty exercise in the field

-People like to ask really dumb questions that were already answered in the brief

-Direct commissionees did not have to take and pass a PT test before coming. Their first one ever will be next week. Half the class goes on Wed (i do) and the other half goes on Thursday

-If you give blood you get out of PT