FROM THE MUD UP

摘要

Imagine standing in a pit of mud, staring straight ahead. It's 6 a.m. and you wait apprehensively for direction from your instructor, who stands on a wooden platform before you. "Morning, flight!" bellows the instructor. "What are you?" "Gung ho!" comes the response from you and your 39 classmates, in unison. "How far?" shouts the instructor. "All the way! Every day!" comes the answer. The next hours are filled with push-ups, bear crawls, flutter kicks, painfully tedious time standards, consequences for not meeting those standards, and more personal attention from the instructors than requested. Such begins 84grueling, challenging days of training at the Air Force's Tactical Air Control Party Apprentice Course at its new location at JBSA-Lackland, Texas. "From Day One, the course built up our intestinal fortitude. We learned to push beyond our known mental and physical limits," commented A1C Paul J. Cdebaca, who graduated in the first Lackland class last August.