It's St. Patrick's Day! And...We're #1!!!

We (F-62, my flight) is the #1 Flickerball flight in SOS class 06C. We defeated the (previously) #1 flight who had 20 points to our 19. We failed to score just one more point in our first operation and ended up with 19 points. Anyway, the epic battle of #1 vs #2 took place and we waxed 'em. They were stunned from the beginning. They had never been challenged before and we actually had them shut out until 4 minutes left in the game and they scored a quick 5 points to finish the game. But it was too late. We had already scored 17 points. It was a thing of beauty. The "team" beat the "athletes." We had a solid game plan and worked it to perfection.

This after our lukewarm showing on our second academic test which left us wondering what the hell had happened. Our flight was previously #4 of 38 in the first academic test. We were #4 of our 8 flights in our squadron after this test. That hurt. But we aren't down. Two points events left and we feel good. The school puts a premium on the top third grads...I think we've all but locked that up. We want to be #1. Don't think we have even a mathematical chance at that, but #2 don't look so bad right now. Lots of IFs running through all our minds right now. 1 more minute spread between 2 tasks and we'd be #1! Yeah, and if worms had machine guns, birds wouldn't @#%$ with them either...

Anyway...stay tuned for the updates...slow as they are...

I know it has been a little while...yeah, a little while...but I've been just a little busy.
I'm currently attending Squadron Officer School in Montgomery AL.
Before coming I had heard many different stories about the experience, with the underlying theme being your flight makes or breaks your experience. Well I'm happy to report my flight is awesome! We've come together very well with common goals and none of the in-fighting I had worried about. The proof is in the pudding: After 2 weeks, we're currently the best flight in our squadron and very near the top of our entire class. We'll see how we do as the course continues...

Alabama weather is a definite improvement over Utah at this point. Sunny and 75ish yesterday as we were finishing up our flickerball victory over another flight. Flickerball is an AF game that is best described as a mix of football, basketball and hockey. Played with a small yellow playground ball the object is to learn the rules better than the other team. This isn't intended to test anyone's athletic ability so much as the ability of the team to build a strategy, follow the rules, execute their strategy, follow the rules, overcome injected adversity, and follow the rules. Getting the drift? If you think the last minute of a close basketball game has a lot of fouls and free throws, you ain't seen nuthin'.

The academic side of SOS has kept me busy as well. The school throws a lot of info at you in a short time and tests you as much on your ability to read the question as your ability to answer it. Simple recall of long lists of information won't get you very far. Understanding at the COMPREHENSION level is the expectation and is what is tested. The average score on the first academic test for 489 college educated Captains was 86%. While that may seem high to some, it really isn't. 15 of those above mentioned Capts failed to score the minimum 70%. Yours truly did ok...scoring a 95% but I shouldn't have missed one of those two questions!

Anyway...this has been the first night I've had in quite a long time to catch up...so I've written just a little bit about the experience so far.

Remember...I said from the beginning...a very hit and miss blog...