Warrior Leader Course

About a year ago, I shipped off to Basic Training and AIT for Initial Entry Training to join the United States Army Reserve. I think that was one of the most formative experiences of my life to date, but I'm still learning. Every day brings something new.

This week, I will be attending the Warrior Leader Course, and assuming successful completion of the course I will be awarded the NCO Officer Development Ribbon. Still getting everything sorted out before I leave. I think the biggest challenge for me will be transitioning back to that strenuous training environment, and the fact that I'm moreso book-smart than street-smart, not that I was ever that much of an academic.

It was kind of a surprise to me that I would be going, especially this soon, but I guess slots opened up for my unit and I figured I'd jump on the opportunity. I don't know if I'm ready to be a sergeant and I can't get promoted to E-5 until August anyways, but we'll see how it goes and I should take any opportunity to train, learn, get paid, and move ahead in the Army that I can. If there's one thing I learned from training last summer, it's that I can accomplish the tasks demanded of me but not alone, not in my own power.

I think the contrast between the masculine, rigid environment of training and the "it doesn't matter if you were a soldier" atmosphere of filming for Red Dawn definitely taught me a lot about masculinity and respect, that is, it's not something you can simply earn. "You can respect the rank, but you don't have to respect the person" is something I've heard over and over again, and I've seen both sides of the coin, and I can't deny that I've landed on the asshole side myself.

It doesn't matter how much you trumpet yourself if no one's willing to listen to you. I guess it's kind of interesting to me - one of the reasons I enlisted was because I want to live a rich life experience, and have good stories that I can share with my good friends, and I gotta weigh that against the whole "flaunting myself" aspect of it.

Do I regret enlisting, even though I could have been an officer right off the bat? Not at all, I'm pretty content with the path that I've chosen, and it's always an option in the future. We'll see how things go from here.