Way down yonder on the Chattahoochee...

I am at the end of my 3rd day at Fort Benning (incidentally, the Chattahoochee River of Alan Jackson fame really does run through the base).

BOLC II is a LOT better than any other course I've done with the Army, with the possible exception of CTLT at Fort Hood:

• I'm getting my first training in the "real Army", not cadet land.
  
• I get off every day at 5:00 PM
• I am getting paid as a 2nd Lieutenant, instead of the cadet rate of $25 per day
• I have people calling ME Sir for a change
  
• ACUs are much more comfortable than BDUs
• I have my xbox 360 and a TV in my room
• I have my laptop and an internet connection (so I can blog among other things)
• I have a car and the freedom to drive off post if I desire

There still are a few negatives:

• I miss my cute wife and son
• Georgia is amazingly hot and humid in the summer
• I had another "Army birthday" - the day after we checked in (thanks to the people who emailed/texted/replied to Becca's blog post with happy birthday wishes to me - it meant a lot to me!)

Lucky for me the positives far outweigh the negatives and it's only 46 days until I head up to Fort Knox and I'll get to have "my babies" with me again.

I don't really have any pictures to upload because I didn't bring a camera with me... I'm hoping to borrow one soon so I can post some cool pictures to give you an idea of what it's like here.

So far we haven't really done too much - we've signed a lot of forms, sat through a bunch of briefings, and took a PT test this morning (got my run back down under 14 minutes thankfully).

Anyhoo - I'll keep you all updated as we start to do the "cool stuff" - next week we'll start combatives (beating each other up).