In this picture above I hid 2nd Lieutenant rank on my ACU as a symbol and a reminder of my goal, how I should carry myself and guide my thinking.  Yes, I know it is entirely out of Army regulation, but just read and I think it will be made clear as to why I secretly wear this passion.

Two days ago while on duty I had a bit of down time, so I decided to recall all of the questions that were asked of me in the first Officer Direct Commission board that I attended.  (If you recall, I wrote a post explaining in great detail how that board played out here.)  After jotting down the questions I looked over them carefully and made mental notes of the ones that required the most crucial answer.  The questions were as follows:

• Tell us what you do or tell us about yourself.
• Who is your mentor or guide at your unit?
• How do you plan to make up for the training you've missed in OCS and ROTC?
• What other leadership roles have you had besides teaching?
• What do you see yourself doing in the Army in the next 3 to 7 years?
• Why didn't you do ROTC in college?
• Why are you trying to become an officer now?

These questions were critical and very probing.  I stumbled to put it very bluntly.  However, I  basically concluded in my blog post about my first ODC board attempt that my trouble stemmed from not having a clear answer to the most important question that wasn't asked in the first interview:  

Why do you want to be an Army Officer?

So, after jotting down these questions and thinking over them, I then resorted to answering this critical question above.

I have natural passion for leading and teaching people.

I desire to be greater than I am by expanding my abilities through knowledge, trial and error, while continuing to press forward.

I believe my purpose lies within the realm of military leadership and decision-making to help serve and protect people of the United States and it's Constitution.

I know that my civilian education, teaching experience and skills will uniquely aid me in developing the additional technical and tactical proficiences and qualities needed to be an Army officer, once coupled with officer training.

Overall I believe that by serving as an Army Reserve commissioned officer, I will be a better leader than I am, allow me to further myself in higher education, and ultimately open doors for a civilian occupation with a major US governmental agency.

I wrote my answer to this question in a creed-like fashion because it makes my thoughts and intentions very clear to anyone that reads it.  I know what I am after and I will not give up!  I stumbled on the first try, but this second time I believe I will do exceedingly better to earn the boards recommendation for direct commission.

My mission is to become a U.S. Army Reserve Commissioned Officer.

Warrior Ethos:  I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat.  I will never quit.

So that it is clear, all of this is a recap of the last weekend from January 7th to January 9th as it happened.

This past weekend, as you know, I had to go to Tampa, Florida to do the battalion level Best Warrior Competition (Agh!  I am so bored and burnt out with even hearing that title).  Before leaving I literally ransacked my bedroom to find things in my luggage that I brought back with me from training.  For the record, my bedroom doesn't look like this on a regular basis.  I just had to dig out only the items that I thought I needed for the weekend.

I left with my sponsoring NCO later Friday afternoon.  I drove and we studied using the iPhone Army Study Guide app the majority of the way to prepare for what turned out to be not as stressful as expected.  

To be continued...

P.S.  I've been extremely busy between teaching all day, physical training and working and shooting videos for my YouTube channel, I'm pretty burnt.  But preparing for the BWC is what had to take most of my time.  But I'm trucking right along.

I've been sitting up late like this in my bed for the past four days studying for the board of the Best Warrior Competition happening this weekend (January 8-9).  I am soooooo tired right now it's not funny.  It's 2:04am...  Tomorrow morning I have to report to my unit to do mock sessions of going before the board in terms of the procedures and then the oral questioning on various subjects of Army knowledge.  The latter is the part that has had me stressed out.  The good part is that SSG Amaya, one of my detachment squad leaders, assured me that the board is aware of me having just graduated as a new soldier and will be asking basic questions.  Phew!  But still in the back of my mind, I know to plan for the worst, hope for the best. *fingers crossed, saying lots of prayers* It's just how I'm wired. lol  

Stay tuned!

This video below is a direct video reply by ssghooty on YouTube to my 6th vlog in my previous blog post "Drill Weekend, Job Cut, Switched to Active Duty - GDS Vlog 006"

I am very grateful for his input!  As I said in my reply to him in so many words, I feel very reassured. :)

"This is a reply video to godavidstrong. David vlogged about life in general while attached to the USAR. I felt as though this soldier needed some guidance. Best of luck to you David."

This vlog catches you up on what happened since I attended my first drill weekend, some unfortunate news about my civilian job and how I ultimately came to the conclusion to join the active duty army, among other things.

Facebook:  http://facebook.com/godavidstrong

Twitter:  http://twitter.com/godavidstrong

YouTube:  http://youtube.com/godavidstrong

I got off the phone with my Unit Administrator and apparently I have been charged, rather than paid for having missed a mandatory weekend drill (battle assembly).  I am PISSED and here's why.  Apparently following enlistment, reserve soldier's have a 90-day grace period in which they are not obligated to attend weekend drills.  I knew no such fact.  But in all fairness, I new that the drills were taking place, but I was not informed that I was a.  getting paid to attend drill yet,  b.  that they would be mandatory prior to basic combat training, and c.  that I would be charged/fined for not attending a drill.  So here it is, I'm off on the wrong foot. I only got around to starting in-processing at my unit last Wednesday. I'm really annoyed right now.  So I'm gonna give my recruiter an ear full today.  

Lesson learned.  Address all nagging feelings when something feels incomplete and don't depend purely on anybody when given information.  Research EVERYTHING for yourself because in the end, you take the fall for it and you HAVE to shutup and put up.  And conversely, when I become an NCO (non-commissioned officer) or officer, I will make it a point to make sure those under me are well informed as much as it depends on me.  It will not be fair that they get punished for my failure to divulge something that needed to be known.  In battle, this gets people killed, especially in light of how people get killed anyway even when everything is done right.

I spent the better portion of Wednesday morning through the afternoon visitin my unit, getting my pay paperwork taken care of, got my schedule for doing drills with my unit, starting April 11. Had the great fortune of learning that I may be able to reclassify to Military Police prior to basic training--which would be SO AWESOME! I'm so hyped and hope that this really works out! Finally, I went to the park and ran three quarters of a mile, and next week I plan to run one complete mile. 

Onward, ever upward. Forward, never backward! 

Go David Strong! HOOAH!!

Teachers and students in Broward County are on Spring Break as of Friday March 26.  My days are now open and I have a lot of free time.  Today I've been lounging about the house and eating things I shouldn't--and I won't beyond today.  I got online to check on my uploaded videos to my YouTube channel and got sucked in watching videos of some subscribers that are also enlisted or are considering enlisting.  One thing led to another and I came a cross a video about Military Police.  From the beginning of my enlistment process I knew I didn't want a combat MOS to appease my mother, but deep down I really hoped with all my might that there would be a spot in the Military Police as a reservist.  Since that wasn't the case I have literally dreamed of being able to reclassify in the future.  Perhaps after OCS I will be able to choose MP then, I really don't know.  

All I can say is that I think MP is a really, REALLY exciting MOS!  I don't care WHAT it takes, I will work my way toward this dream goal of mine, so help me God!  I want a career in the military and MP is the dream job in my mind.  For now, I'll do what I have to.  ...I wish there was some blessed way to become an MP sooner than I think.

I was beat, but I wanted to let you guys know I'm still alive and moving forward. Like I said in the video, I've been working a lot, as well as doing a lot of physical training because I was a weakling. lol 

Today was the last day of work before going on Spring Break vacation. So I was at work for teacher planning and simply didn't want to be there. I'm shocked that I was even productive. ;)

Anyway, that's all.

Take care and comment rate subscribe!

This morning I woke up to my mom having an arsenal of questions that ultimately lead up to the quintessential question all sons and daughters are asked when deciding to join the armed forces, "Why do you want to join the military?"  Mom's question is fine and natural, but poorly timed--or maybe not because it got me thinking more.  To double-check my motives and reasons.  

I'll fast-forward and tell you now that I didn't give an answer because she cornered me before I was heading out the door for work and it would not be fair to her nor myself to just blurt out something.  I know my reasons, but something screamed, "This is not the time for this type of conversation."  And so I told my mom that when I get home this afternoon that we will talk about it, and she said ok.  But as I was preparing to step outside the house she stopped me and said, "I'm 59 years old and Jonathan (my brother) will have no one...no one in this world," as she started sobbing.  I think understand what my mother feels, but I immediately caught onto the underlying context--the worst case scenario:  She'll pass away, I'll get called up and die in a war, and my brother will be alone.  Again, I understand my mom's feelings, but I couldn't imagine for the life of me how I was supposed to respond to that with ten minutes before I have to literally be at work, not just on the way. When I think about it, I should have hugged my mom and told her again that we'll talk more about it this afternoon.  But I said stood there for all of ten seconds pondering what I should say, but I continued on.

A little backstory...

I do not want to share the details of my moms exact words and feelings about people dying for our country, but I'll just say that they aren't positive due to heated, long-lasting encounters with people she dislikes (and it left serious emotional scars; A BIG GRUDGE).  So the idea of one of her children joining the army to potentially die for a country that includes the continued happiness of the people she dislikes, and I'll leave nameless, it is just...out of this world for her.  And sadly, I honestly have no clue how to react to that.  Frankly, I'd probably side-step this aspect of her reason for asking me why I want to join the army.  In fact, it appears to be a distraction from the heart of the matter.  And as I realized that she asked me, "What do I need to fight for?!"  Immediately my thinking was I cannot adopt the same reason for not joining the army as her.  And when asked why I want to join, I can't think of any strong personal reasons for not joining--even in the face of being deployed "over there" from reserve status (of course, I'd be afraid, but I've accepted that reality because it's the military I'm joining, not Disney).  Finally she said to me, "In the time we live in, there will always be war."  *silence*

I know the risks and I ponder it a lot, even during the past when joining hadn't even crossed my mind.  I wondered, "What would it be like?"  So let me answer her question here, and this should help me better verbalize my reasons to my mom later today.

Why I want to joint the military (Army Reserve)

I want to serve my country.   No, our country isn't perfect.  It has many flaws, many that aren't worth defending one bit, but sooooo much more that is worth fighting for and maintaining--namely our future (the children), our history and the affect that our ideologies have had on the world (equality and freedom).  When I hear a negative remark about America, I ponder both sides of the argument to see if the critique is justified.  If it is justified, then I would suggest to that person that he or she not only talk about it, act on it, execute an effective approach to bring about awareness, and get it into the political arena within his or her home state so that change can begin to happen.  It's just that most people would rather complain, yell, shout, act out and cause a scene or hide, rather than do the dirty work that it takes to bring a matter to attention.  And this is probably the case because the process isn't a quick fix.  It's slow, may cost something (time and or money), and further personal sacrifice on some level outside of time and money.  Our Martin Luther Kings Jr.s, Rosa Parks', Ghandi's etc are fewer and far between.  Which takes me to my next point.

So I want to give, I want to serve, and meanwhile advance and improve myself as I do.  I've pondered ways to do it, and this is the choice I've made, though rigorous schedules, rules, and bodily strain are a VERY big of military life.  Furthermore, I expect to be FULLY surprised even after all I've read and have been told about the basic training and the army, and thereafter as well.  Nothing can fully prepare me, for what's to come, but I want to do it.  (To clarify however, I'm not at all interested in being on of those "HOOAH!!," jump out of planes, front line, shoot'em up, kill'em dead, fighter types.  If I wanted that I'd be thinking of an MOS (job) in Infrantry, and THEN I'd really understand where my mom is coming from. LOL  ...but that's not the case.)

Finally, I want to get a good career experience from joining the military, but I'll blog about this in detail another day though.

I'll talk to my mom this afternoon like I said. ...And I get it.  My mom is really asking, why does it have to be me?  Why do I need to join?  Let the other parents kids go to war. I'm her firstborn son of two sons.  I get it.  But again, what am I to do with myself, my career, my life?  Stand still?

 I'm 27 years old and I feel stifled.  If I thought my life and present career were satisfying, I wouldn't be bothing with the military, but I want more.  A bigger challenge.