I'm down to my last few days of freedom. Come tuesday morning at o'dark-thirty in the morning, I report to the Illinios Military Academy in Springfield, IL for a couple days of inprocessing before we board a bus and get shipped up to Camp Ripley, MN for Phase One of Officer Candidate School. I've been preparing myself for the better part of a year to get this opportunity.

I've been in the US Army in one form or fashion for about 12 years in total. Nine of that has been active duty, the remaining time have been with the Reserves or National Guard. For the majority of that time I've been a Non-Commissioned Officer, but after the end of the training I'm starting next week, I will then be promoted to Officer as a Second Lieutenant.

It will be a long long road though. A total of 18 months from start to finish. Phase One is three weeks straight. Then I return home and for the next 12 months, I just return to Springfield IMA for a weekend a month just like any other reservist. This is Phase 2. Then, next summer, I ship out again to some location for a couple weeks for Phase 3 training return to IMA Springield and finish up my courses. Finally, 18 months later the surviving class members have out granduation/promotion ceremony and put on the Gold Bar on our Uniform for the first time.

I will be the 2nd oldest student in our class so far. But I am by far the most Militarily experienced. I blew everyone away during the prep days for the past few months. I even beat an IMA record at Land navigation. We had 40 minutes to complete the course, I did it (100%) in 12.