On saturday we had a poolee function. That's basically where everyone who's waiting to leave to bootcamp gets together with their recruiter and let's them know if anything has changed that would prevent them to leave to bootcamp. Usually, the recruiters have something planned for us. I remember my first poolee function was the combat fitness test. That was the worst thing EVER invented. My second was a touch football game with a little thing they call circuit training. That's also the worst thing ever. Yesterday, they got orders from higher up to run an IST on us. An IST is an initial strength test. This includes a mile and a half run in under 12:30 do at least 6 pull ups and at least 60 crunches in 2 minutes. My first IST was really bad since I was so out of shape and my second one was a big improvement, but those were only practice and didn't count; however, this time a captain and the sergeant major of the Marine Corps were there watching us. No pressure or anything, right? I did pretty well on the pull ups as usually with seventeen. I really don't know what happened with my crunches but it upset me when I only got 60. I guess this helped fueled my motivation for the run. Especially being a squad leader you need to be a "stud" at everything. I honestly did not know if I could improve since I improved by 2 minutes plus on my second run from my first run. I ran a 13:34 the first time and a 11:07 the second. Either way I ran hoping to beat 11:07. So I ran and of course I got tired at the end, but I'm really competitive and don't like to see myself be beaten. A friend of mine was barely in front of me and Gunnery Sergeant Chanchay was yelling to sprint and past him. I have no idea where I found this type of energy to sprint for a good 30 seconds and past my friend to get a time of 10:19.
After everyone finished the IST, we started practicing drilling. I thought it was so cool, we looked like recruits at recruit training. The Marines walked around and did to us as the drill instructors will do to us at bootcamp. They went around trying to make us laugh trying to make us move. Some of the things I over heard and saw were pretty funny, but I knew I couldn't break my poise and bearing or else they would come and pick on me- especially as a squad leader. After drilling, we awarded the newest members of the poolee, meaning people who just enlisted. We gave them the welcome aboard ceremony that we all got when we joined which I personally enjoy just because I get to see what motivated others to join. After all that, we sat down with two Marines for about 2 hours and they told us stories of their experiences at bootcamp. They also gave us tips on what to do and what not to do. For example, I thought this was the funniest, one of them asked their senior drill instructor to make an "emergency headcall". (Headcall meaning restroom visit.) his senior drill instructor then made him run around screaming the sound of an ambulance.
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