IOBC Has Begun...But Rather Slowly

Dear Friends,

IOBC has indeed begun putting me on the next step to being a qualified infantry officer. It has started off slowly, though, only doing in-processing stuff and now sitting in classes all day. We should only have 2 weeks of the classroom stuff, and then we get to go and shoot again. In reality, it is kinda nice to have these classes because it allows me to get a good routine going. Everyone is trying to get into good shape for the next school (Ranger School for most of us). My roommates and I are having a great time entertaining each other, but we're trying to avoid some of the topics of conversation which are overused. For instance, we're not allowed to say Ranger School. We can only say Follow-on training. People think we're weird...but maybe that's because we are.

I guess I can start to tell you about my squad. We haven't really gotten a chance to mesh together yet, but they all seem like pretty capable guys. There are a few Christians in my squad too whom I was able to pick out rather quickly. Christians in the military just seem to stick out to me. In my squad we also got a couple international students including one from Greece and another from Lebanon. It seems we want to train the Lebanon officers now rather than letting Iran do it. I'll get you their names next week so that you can start praying for them. As of right now just know that I am in good spirits and enjoying the easy pace of training.