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from a REP-63 to those in the pipeline
Hey guys, I graduated in September, am now overseas and have recently been messaging with some REP-63s and 18Xs who've had all kinds of questions. I just thought I'd toss a couple of those answers out here in case others of you out there might have similar questions. Again I'm an FNG on a team and do not claim to know much, but I do know what it's like to be a new 18X/REP-63 on a team and to go from the course right into a deployment.
The best advice I can give is to remember during the course that the skills you learn now may some day directly contribute to your and your teammates' survival. Strange as it may sound this applies equally if not more so to OSUT as it does to all the "high speed" SF skills you'll learn in the Q course. I remember the class we had in OSUT on the Mark 19, I thought hey I'm going SF and this is a regular infantry weapon so I don't really need to remember this stuff. Well guess what my position is on my team when we convoy: Mark 19 gunner. And we convoy a lot. I felt like a turd when I didn't know my head from my ass with that weapon. Pay attention and try to retain as much as possible, you never know when you'll need it.
The other big lesson I've learned is that I'm only a medic when medical shit is going down, otherwise I'm the junior-junior weapons guy, engineer, intel guy, commo guy and grunt laborer. There is so much stuff that has to be done on a team that everyone has to pitch in and help with everybody else's job as much as possible. This is especially true for the medics because at least where I am there is not much medicine to be done. I arrived on the team knowing medicine cold, but because I was a REP-63 I knew very little about other things like heavy weapons, demo and commo equipment. It was a steep learning curve. This goes back to retaining as much as possible during the pipeline.
A lot has been written about physical training prior to shipping for OSUT, but I'll just throw in my take on it: Train for the APFT because that's what you'll be doing most during OSUT. You ruck enough during OSUT to prep you for SOPC and then you do plenty during SOPC to prep you for SFAS. Just getting through those phases and moving right into the next will keep you in shape and give you a huge advantage, especially at selection, versus the guys that come from the regular Army. Remember that a lot of these guys who seem out of shape compared to you have just come from fighting a war and were not afforded the luxury of a regular pt schedule.
Finally, never forget why you're in the pipeline: to fight in the war on terror as an SF soldier. Make no mistake about it, if you get through you will go to war. This applies to Guard guys (like me) as much as to the active guys. I told myself I understood that when I signed up, but I don't think I really did. Never forget it. I'm stoked as hell to be here, being on a team at war is the best experience of my life. Life at SWC sucks a lot of the time and there's very little you can do about it, but life on a team is a whole different story. Don't let SWC get you down, especially you medics!
Feel free to PM me with any specific questions, I'll reply as I'm able. Hope this helps. Later, Pete
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