Water Survival Training, Zero Dark Thirty . . .
. . . Monday morning, 16 June 2014. Well, it wasn't really that early . . . the sun was up . . . but it was "early". Breakfast this morning was an MRE (this girl said she got a taco . . . not a breakfast taco . . . a taco taco . . . for breakfast!) Uniform ACUs and tennis shoes . . . and we were off to the Grafenwoehr swimming pool for Water Safety Training.
At the pool the TACs show us how to use our wits to survive in the water. First some of us swam the length of the pool in our ACUs . . . then we learned how to inflate the shirt and pants to use them as flotation devices. Pretty neat! Even those who can't swim learned how to do this . . . they did it in the shallow water and wore life jackets.
Then we braved a real challenge . . . the 5-meter board. We were challenged by the Camp Commander to jump off; looked easy enough . . . but it was a lot higher when viewed from the top of the board. OMG!!
Everyone jumped from that or the 1-meter board . . . even the non-swimmers. This was not so much to learn how to develop solid water survival skills as it was to challenge us to overcome our fear of the unknown, generally . . . and specifically, fear of the water. We all did it together and we all survived the challenge . . . together. Well done, Teammates! JROTC teaches Teamwork!
Oh, and there was this guy underwater taking pictures of us doing it.
(Afterwards we had some training in Canoeing and Land Navigation . . . skills we will need later this week! Stay tuned! MREs again for lunch . . . dinner in the DFac.)
At the pool the TACs show us how to use our wits to survive in the water. First some of us swam the length of the pool in our ACUs . . . then we learned how to inflate the shirt and pants to use them as flotation devices. Pretty neat! Even those who can't swim learned how to do this . . . they did it in the shallow water and wore life jackets.
Then we braved a real challenge . . . the 5-meter board. We were challenged by the Camp Commander to jump off; looked easy enough . . . but it was a lot higher when viewed from the top of the board. OMG!!
Everyone jumped from that or the 1-meter board . . . even the non-swimmers. This was not so much to learn how to develop solid water survival skills as it was to challenge us to overcome our fear of the unknown, generally . . . and specifically, fear of the water. We all did it together and we all survived the challenge . . . together. Well done, Teammates! JROTC teaches Teamwork!
Oh, and there was this guy underwater taking pictures of us doing it.
(Afterwards we had some training in Canoeing and Land Navigation . . . skills we will need later this week! Stay tuned! MREs again for lunch . . . dinner in the DFac.)