Sorry it has taken so long to get this post up.
Graduation Rehearsal was kinda gay. Gotta be there at 0730 for a briefing by the Center One people, which only took bout an hour and half, then it was time to rehearse. They have this whole format and really precise things they want you to do. We went through it all a bunch of times. They coudn't make it a simple march in, call of some names and be done with it. They want to you march in, say the soldier's creed, they do some speeches, honor the class leader, the person with the highest PT score, the honor grad, then you walk across the stage, do a couple more things, sing the Army song, then your done. But we went over it like 5-6 times for rehearsal, mainly the saying of the Soldier's Creed because people are used to saying it at different speeds and stuff. But the good news is that it's an early day. Your not dismissed per se but rather "released" to prep for graduation and clear out your room. I went and picked up my wife from the airport in Charlotte, N.C. Your also get your paperwork for your duty station. You get a memo awarding the Recruiter Badge for permanent wear, orders awarding the ASI of "4", and the request for orders paper to turn in when you get back to your duty station.
You clear out of your room before 0600. The class leader is the last one to clear out and you turn your meal card in when you show up to graduation. Graduation starts at 0900. You do all the stuff and then your done and released to go back to your duty station. We stayed one more night in the Columbia area and made our way back to my duty station starting Saturday morning. Graduation only took about an hour. Now I'm officially done with Recruiting and Retention School.
Today everyone finished up their Army Interviews, while a select few of us role played for the Guidance Counselor students. It was a lot of fun, they gave us a name, social, ed code, and a little scenario that pretty much told us our attitude towards everything. They wanted us to act a fool like young future soldiers would act so it would wind up them up. It worked, we talked on our phones, played dumb, walked out on them, anything you could think of we did. We made them work for their GO's, they all passed so we didn't screw them over. It was a good learning experience for us too, we got to see how our applicants feel going through it all.
We also got our ASU's today at lunch. The pants are $87 and the coat is $189 the white shirts are like $27. Thats all I bought. You don't have to, but if you get fitted you do or they throw a fit. You can buy as much or as little as you want, so if you don't want the hat you don't have to get it. The STA-BRITE Recruiter Badges are like $23 and from what I've heard they give you the un-STA-BRITE at the school house. You also have to pay for your rank, combat stripes and service stripes, which is a couple buck apiece. Alterations depends. The pant hemming is free, you only have to pay for the coat part, at the least you'll pay is $41 for the little gold piping by the cuff to be put on, if the buttons need to be moved thats $10 and I'm not sure about anything else they do. You can also just get your existing blues updated to the ASU standard that is fine too. It's all on you. Tomorrow we are getting some briefings in the morning, followed by graduation practice and an early release if we work through lunch, which we will. Tomorrow will probably be my last post for the Recruiter School blog. I'll be moving onto the Post-Recruiter School / PCS after graduation and all that documenting my experiences PCS'ing to a city instead of a base.
Well, I went in with only my packet left to do, should have been done before lunch. I finished around 1500. The CG USAREC and CSM USAREC decided that they wanted to talk to all of recruiting land at school. So from 0930 until lunch we spent listening to them, what did they talk about you might ask, I don't really know. The CG talked about things he's learned over his military career and the CSM talked about...... I don't remember. Anyway it was long and kinda boring, they just pretty much re-enforced what we as NCO's already know and do. But low and behold I did get my packet done and complete in two hours after lunch. So I am all done with testing for RECEX and recruiter school. The ones who No Go'ed the phone calls yesterday re-did them this morning and after lunch they started on the Army Interview and of course since the USAREC command team decided to stop by today there are still a couple hand fulls of people that still need to do their Army Interview. So tomorrow we have to be there at 0700, which isn't bad, NO PT!!!! About 10 of us who are completely done get to show up in civilians clothes and do some training thing for the Guidance Couselor Course, basically we get to play civilians who are getting inprocessed at MEPS. So that should be fun. After lunch we pick up our ASU's, go back and finish up the training thing with the GC's and we are good for the day.
OH MAN! Today was day 1 of RECEX and I won't lie I was nervous as hell. Especially since I was first in the chute for my squad and it ended up as first for the whole class since the other 2 evaluators showed up a little late. I couldn't sleep last night, I couldn't eat this moring, I was a mess. I heard my evaluator was the toughest and that didn't make it any better. Especially walking into the unknown was kinda scary too.
What happens is this: you'll go into a room that has a desk and a chair, looks like a recruiter office. The phone will ring, you pick it up and the evaluator asks if your ready. After he makes sure you are and you know who your person is you get a count down, 3...2...1... and then the evaluator says "Hello" and then it's on like donkey kong. You just do what you've been taught. At the end you'll get an AAR over the phone and find out if your a GO or not. If you are you go start getting ready for the Army Interview, if your a NO GO you get a retrain sheet and you go back to your Small Group Leader for retraining. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be and my evaluator was pretty cool. He graded to standard but didn't make it impossible. As long as you know the steps and you can show that you are competent you are good.
For the interview it's you and the next two people in your squad for the RECEX. When it's your time for the interview you'll go back to that same room, set up your stuff and the computer with the recruiting disk that they gave you. At which point the evaluator will give you the run down on how it's going to go. Basically, after your briefing everyone but you will leave, you give the evaluator about 2 mins to make it back to his room and start the recording device, walk over to the door and open it. There will be your applicant and their influencer. Then you go through your interview like you've been trained. Since it's your buddies they aren't going to throw stuff out that puts a wrench in your plans so don't worry about that. All the info they tell you will come from a sheet of paper that the evaluator will give them. The evaluator may call and tell you to move on to the next step if your doing well and they may even end it early. When it's over your more than likely not going to know how you did, then the next guy gets ready and the process repeats itself except now your not going to see the evaluator again until everyone goes through it. So it's more or less 3 hrs of nothing but Army Interviewing going on. After everyone in your 3 person group goes through the evaluator will come to you and give everyone an AAR in person as a group and thats when you'll know how you did. My group all got GO's, we were also the only ones to do the interview today. All we have left to do now is create our enlistment packets. I can't really tell you how that will go until tomorrow. But I'll let you know, don't worry.
PS-Thanks to those who have given me encouraging words, and I hope that this has given you all some insight to Recruiting School, so at least you'll have something to let you know whats coming up instead of going in blind. I can't promise it will be the same, it all depends on
Today was the CAPSTONE. It wasn't as bad as we all thought. It is 50 questions, so only 10 more than any other written test. The only thing that made it a little harder was the fact that it covers everything from day 1 to now, so it is a ton of regulations to search through. As long as you know how to use the search feature well it won't take as long. I got a 90 and others did just as well or ever a little better. After the test we just BS'ed with our instructor a little bit and went and got a walk around of the RECEX place. They have a room that has a bunch of smaller rooms in it and those are the evaluation rooms. They have about 4 or 5 for the Army Interview and 1 for the phone call. The phone call is the first thing that you do, and unlike in class all you know is their name and their education code and even that you don't find out until you sit down in the chair to make the call. We are still kinda unclear on how we get all the information for the Army Interview, we were told they'll give us a scenario sheet like they did in class, but the evaluator made it sound like the only information we get is what we find out while on the phone. So I don't know, I'll let you know when I go through on Monday. I'm nervous as hell because I got stuck with the evaluator that all instructors say is a d*ck head and is a badge protector. Almost everyone that goes through him is No Go'ed at least once. Oh yeah, the way they break down what evaluator you get is ABC order. So the people in your RECEX group won't be those in your small group.
The phone call you'll be calling the evaluator and the Army Interview you will be giving it to your fellow student. The interview I'm not to worried about because you get time to practice and "script" out because as an instructor said, you get time after the phone call to practice so therefore the person that will be your applicant knows what your going to say and you'll be able to make sure they respond the way that you want, so basically your not sittin there not knowing if they are going to say something that will trip you up. The last few things you have to do for RECEX is making a packet and put a COI/VIP into the computer. You do that in another room and with a different evaluator and from what I've been told you get a whole scenario sheet on that part so there is nothing that you have to make up or guess on, it's right in front of you. But like I said I'll fill everyone in on Monday, if all goes well I'll pass everything on that day so I'll be able to tell you all about it. I also want it to be over, after your done with RECEX it's pretty much smooth sailing with no real hard times after that.
Today was another boring day. We finished up our Army interviews and those of us who got a No Go on one had to do another one. This time I passed and I didn't forget a part. We also went over our last few classes, like transferring someone from the National Guard to the Active Army, things like that. Then we talked a little bit about the CAPSTONE test, and went over some common things that get people on it.
Sorry it's taken so long for the new posts to be put, we as a class have been dealing with alot of stuff the last few days.
Well, today we went down to Charleston to do some P3/Face to Face prospecting. It was a nice day out, sunny, not too hot and a nice breeze coming off the water. It was a little different talking to people face to face, but it wasn't too bad. Almost everyone that we ran into were on vacation and really didn't want to be bothered. We got there around lunch time so we got something to eat first. Before we left we went to a pharmacy to get something to drink and we got a history lesson on Charleston from the owner. She was nice and gave us some free water. The ride back put everyone to sleep. It's only bout an hour to hour and half but after walking around all day in the sun kinda took it out of us.
We finished the 2nd round of the Army Interviews. We did about 3 presentations today. And tomorrow we are going to Charleston for some face to face prospecting. On a good note we don't have PT tomorrow, the instructors are taking a PT test, so thats about the only good news from today, other than that BORING!
Another pretty cut and dry, boring day. We did more of our 2nd round interviews. This time you weren't allowed to use any notes, you had to go by memory alone, to say the least I bombed it. I forgot the APPLEMDT part, which I kept making it a point to study a little bit of it everyday so I wouldn't forget. I realized it about half way through and by then it was a little to late. But oh well, we still have a 3rd one to do, so hopefully I remember then. Tomorrow we are doing our presentations that we were assigned like week 2 or 3. Mine is on "Personal Courage" to the Boy Scouts. Tomorrow we are also getting a lesson on face to face prospecting and area canvassing in preparation for our lil field trip to Charleston. But on a good note, they finally turned the A/C on in the school house. It helped out tremedously because 3 fans and an open window was not keeping it c
Now that week 5 is done we only have 2 weeks left. But today was sweet as hell because we had no class. We went to SRP at 0730 and that didn't last long because most of us had everything done. Some people needed to get shots, and some needed vision or hearing screening. But luckly the vision and hearing people weren't in so we were all done by like 0930, then we were off and could do whatever we wanted until 1245. At 1245 we went to the clothing and sales to get fitted for the ASU, that wasn't too bad, they just got you pants that fit and a coat for now. Many have to come back to get a special order coat. The Wedsnesday before graduation is when you go pick them up and pay. As soon as we were done there, we headed over to the CIIF and picked up 2 pair of brand new ACU's. As soon as you got through the fast line you were free to day. I was off by 1500. A nice good long weekend.
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