souza Palooza

I'm alive! Fresh out of Basic Training, woot woot!


So, I made it! I graduated 16 July 2010 and now am in Tech school until, well...forever. Basic Training was one of the hardest things I've done, but now that I graduated I look back and realize it really wasn't that hard. I had one of the BEST instructors I could have asked for, Basic wouldn't have been the same without him. I made a couple friends (and realized how much more I cannot stand stupid people...haha!). One of my new friends, Laura DiPasquale (we called her D in basic, now I call here by her actual name, Laura), is here with me at Tech School! She is in a different squadron but we still manage to hang out and meet up for lunch and what not. We get along great because she's a smart a** just like me! We clicked the first week of basic and have been buddies since!

Here is us our first week of basic folding our clothes! Gotta love rolling those socks and t-shirts, NOT! We're such dorks! I love it!









Again, Laura and I together, look how enthused we look! HA! "A Bay to B Bay", those words were usually not good. It was either we're gonna learn how to do something, or be put on our face. 9 times out of 10 it was "on your face, nope too slow!" (for those who don't know what that means, it's push-ups, flutter kicks, and squat thrusts). Our flight slogan was "crying is only gonna piss me off more" because when we would be on our face aka motivational training, people would be crying and our instructor would always say that!

Back to basic- I was the Guideon Bearer (the person who carries the flag)- I loved it! I got to be right in front for everything, and you know me, I love being front and center...only this was front and to the right (same thing right?). Looking back at the experience now, I wouldn't trade it for anything. It was hard, stressful and demanding in any and every aspect, but it was something that only 1% of the population can say that they've been through. Going into it I wish I would have prepared better, but now that i'm out I realize there's nothing that you can do to prepare yourself to be completely deattatched from everything you know. Overall, it was something i'll never forget and i'm glad I got to go through it, it's just another step in the right direction for me. I could have went the way that most teens go- college life, party party party, but instead I have decided to do all that AND serve my country :) haha, oh and get paid all at the same time- I think it's a pretty sweet deal! I feel honored to have made it this far. Most people can't even make it IN TO the AF with the strict standards they have, then of those people some can't make it past basic training or tech school (yes, I can still fail out of tech school, but i'm not making that a possibility).

19 May 2010! First chow! Boy was that an experience, I don't think I tasted my food for the first 2 weeks! Laura is the one in pink (picture on the top), who knew we'd be such good friends! The lunch lady was my favorite think about the chow hall, besides food of course ;) She always provided us with encouragement and smiles!


"I used to be a beauty queen, now I love my M16"

We got our M16 Trainer Weapons the 1st WOT (week of training) and had to use them all the way until after we came home (well back to the squadron) from BEAST (Basic Expeditionary Airman Skills Training- and that's a whole 'nother story in itself!).

BEAST: The BEAST site consists of four camps (called "zones"), named Vigilent, Sentinel, Reaper (this was the zone I was in), and Predator. Each camp consists of 10 green canvas tents used for sleeping. There are also two tents, one used for a field hospital and the other for a command post. In the center of the ring of tents is a three-story tower (where instructors keep watch so they can chew you out for doing things wrong), and a hardened building which is used as an armory and as a bomb shelter. Each zone also includes five defensive firing positions, and an entry control point (ECP). Each zone is a self-contained unit responsible for operating and defending itself. All 4 zones are in constant competition for the whole week constantly graded and at the end of the week the winner in points is awarded the BEAST EXCELLENCE streamer for their guideon. Reapers were victorious and we brought home that streamer. The flights that have that streamer are then in competition for warrior flight which is overall excellence, unfortunately no one got warrior flight.



A couple of the classes we took while at basic training were skills like self aid buddy care I, II, III & IV ranging from how to patch up a simple wound, applying a tourniquet and how to treat burns. This taught us the basic skills to help a wingman when we are in a deployed environment or just in general. We also learned CPR and how to transport victims. (top left)
Performing mock SABC on our dorm chief Shirley Layer. (top right)
Me and D waiting our turn to practice our SABC. We were pretty much attached the hip during the 8.5 weeks of basic!














O-COURSE!

One of my favorite "obstacles" of basic was the obstacle course itself! I wanted to do it again after we were done! It was 17 obstacles or something like that and you had to run to each one of them! I pretty much dominated the thing and wanted to do it again! We had to double-time (run) the entire way there and back which was about 2.5-3 miles there and the same back. We had to do this WITH our duffel bags packed with an extra pair of everything just in case you fell in the water (which I DIDN'T, because I'm awesome). The picture to the right is of Esquivel, Bowman and I before we started the course!

Rope swing! This was the second to last obstacle, the monkey bars were last! The first obstacle was the rope walk-Most of the females fell in the water at least once at the obstacle course! It took a lot of upper body strength to hold on to the rope swing and make it across the monkey bars, but I did it!


xoxo, jess