Joshua Oren - Army Strong Stories

JAOBC Days 24-57: Where has the time gone?

Joshua Oren — Sun, 19 Dec 2010 21:35:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
My sincerest apologies for the long delay since my last post. We've been pretty busy over the last several weeks and obviously the blog has suffered. It's one of those things where I kept telling myself, "I'll get to it tomorrow," but tomorrow never came. Well, ladies and gentlemen, it's tomorrow! Far too many things have occurred over the last month, so I won't be able to recap every single thing that has happened. In fact, this will probably be a relatively...read more

JAOBC Days 18-23: Veterans Day and Administrative Law

Joshua Oren — Tue, 16 Nov 2010 05:22:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Once again I would like to apologize for the time that has elapsed since my last blog post. Now that the 183d JAOBC has moved from Fort Lee to Charlottesville for the more academic portion of our training, the pace of things has slowed down a bit (certainly helped by the fact that we had a total of six days off in the last nine). While that has certainly resulted in more some extra downtime (although not a lot), it also means that I feel like I have less to write about. It's not that I...read more

JAOBC Days Twelve thru Seventeen: Transition to Charlottesville

Joshua Oren — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 03:11:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
First off, I want to apologize for failing to blog over the last several days. Making the transition from Fort Lee to Charlottesville, combined with a wonderful weekend visit from my girlfriend, has kept me too busy to sit down and blog. There has been a lot going on for the 183rd JAOBC, but not all of it is that interesting so I'm not going to bore you with every mundane detail of what has been going. Still, I'll try to go day-by-day and give you a run down of what we've been up...read more

JAOBC Day Eleven: PT and IDs

Joshua Oren — Thu, 04 Nov 2010 02:50:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Today was eventful was uneventful all at the same time. We finally had PT this morning after not having it at all since last Tuesday (Monday's APFT excepted). It was nice to get back out there and get some early morning exercise in. Today we did some elevated push-ups and sit-ups, where you put your feet up by placing them on the back of someone on all fours. I've done the elevate push-ups before, but never the elevated sit-ups. The sit-ups were more challenging than I thought,...read more

JAOBC Day Ten: (Careful) Fun with Guns

Joshua Oren — Wed, 03 Nov 2010 02:56:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Today was our first day at the firing range as a class. The purpose was not to qualify us with the M9 (9MM Beretta), but rather just to give us a chance to familiarize ourselves with the weapon. The day started with a safety brief, followed by PMI (Preliminary Marksmanship Instruction), and then we each got to fire three clips worth of ammunition down range (there's 15 bullets in a clip). I should also add that as an added safety measure (or maybe just to get comfortable firing with such...read more

JAOBC Day Nine: APFT (Diagnostic)

Joshua Oren — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:08:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Well today marked the 183rd JAOBC's first APFT (again, Army Physical Fitness Test) as a class. For many of us, primarily the direct commissionees, this was also our first APFT ever. This particular APFT was merely diagnostic and meant to give the Soldier and the Cadre an adequate measure of current physical fitness, whereas a record APFT is used to determine whether a Soldier is fit enough for service and whether he/she passes or fails the test is noted in the Soldier's record. The...read more

JAOBC Days Seven and Eight: Work on a Weekend

Joshua Oren — Mon, 01 Nov 2010 04:04:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
I apologize for not blogging yesterday, but there wasn't much exciting for me to write about. Our morning started well before the sun came up and instead of doing PT, we spent time working on Drill and Ceremony activities, specifically marching. We were also given specific instructions as to how the APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) will be administered tomorrow. After being released for breakfast, my platoon returned to the post for a uniform inspection while first platoon headed over to...read more

JAOBC Day Six: Guile, Guns, and Gas

Joshua Oren — Sat, 30 Oct 2010 01:55:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
As I was getting ready to write this post, I really wanted to describe the events of early this morning. Then I realized that I may compromise the Cadre's mission with further classes and I don't want to be the person to do that. Suffice it to say that they employed a little bit of deception as to what was occurring this morning for the 183rd. I will say no more... After our morning mystery session, our class reported back to the installation for some round robin training about...read more

JAOBC Day Five: Medical and More

Joshua Oren — Fri, 29 Oct 2010 04:03:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Today started with a 0500 formation at one of the medical clinics here at Fort Lee. The entire 183rd was set to do their Medical SRP (Soldier Readiness Processing), which I've heard in the past has taken all day. The cadre reported that our class today was done by 1030 due to changes they made since the last class. 2nd Platoon was the first to be examined/innoculated and thus I was done even earlier, by 0800. This was despite the fact that I came in with virtually none of my medical or...read more

JAOBC Day Four: Lethargy, Leadership, and Learning

Joshua Oren — Thu, 28 Oct 2010 05:53:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
This day has been an interesting one. It got off to a rocky start as I woke up and prepared to report for PT, only to find out that PT was canceled due to a combination of rain and a tornado warning in the area. Of course, normally PT is not canceled due to inclement weather; we Soldiers exercise rain or shine, or even snow. However, the uniform for today got changed from the ACU back to the winter PT uniform and because most of us only have one set of winter PTs, the Cadre decided that it...read more

JAOBC Days Two and Three: PT, Paperwork, and Pontification

Joshua Oren — Wed, 27 Oct 2010 05:10:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Before I begin, let me first apologize for not blogging yesterday. However, I would like to add that I doubt I will ever be blogging on a daily basis about my experiences at JAOBC. The mornings come too early, the days are too long, and I am just too busy to accomplish such a task. Still, I will try to get a new post up every couple days. I know how riveting this all must be to you readers, so I wouldn't want to deprive you of such an obviously wonderful thing. Without further ado, a...read more

JAOBC Day One: Introductions

Joshua Oren — Mon, 25 Oct 2010 05:10:00 GMT

By: Joshua Oren
Well, I meant to start this blog long before I arrived here at Fort Lee, but unfortunately I got too busy to do so. Thus, I am forced to introduce myself on the same day that I have been introduced, as an official member, to the U.S. Army. I must say that even though my first day was short in terms of time spent on "duty" (i.e., working), it has been long in terms of hours I've been awake and activities undertaken. Therefore, this blog post will most likely be one...read more