Well, few more weeks to ORD and this week I had a pre-ORD training, mainly like a refresher of basic fundamentals. As an instructor in camp, going for a course like this does relive a little of my trainee days. Sadly, not everyone of my Spec course came back though, if not it would have been awesomely fun, seriously. Nevertheless, out of 120, only 16 remained for the pre-ORD training, together with some 60 men. Not much people, which makes events proceed faster but after being involved in training for so long, seeing how things work when another unit organises the course does make me reflect a lot about how efficient when my unit conduct courses.

Since I'm in a 'trainee' mode, observing how other commanders work and react to situations on the ground has definitely been an eye-opening one. Sometimes I feel a little frustrated over how slowly and inefficiently the commanders react but I'm glad that I didn't step in much or at all. Well, you may say that I'm not doing my job but on the contrary, I think I'm doing my job as a trainee well since trainees take instructions from the course commanders. Good time for newly graduated commanders  to learn to plan and conduct activities. Nice opportunity  for me to do a little review of how each event could have been conducted smoothly and efficient when I, as a trainee, had many instances of just pure waiting, be it during the daily activities or last parade. Much learning as a instructor here I must say and for courses like this, experience really counts. One reason for me to be proud as a Specialist indeed. How things could have been set up at a faster rate, how things could have been explained properly to the trainees, how things could have been planned ahead and briefed properly, how instructions could be disseminated properly really comes with the ability to be forward looking and to react on the ground swiftly. Experience is key I must say, and that was very evident when I saw the way 2 persons from totally different ranks addressed to the group. Not surprising at all that the one of lower rank seemed more experienced though.

As of next week, I'll be back to my job as an instructor in camp. Well, shag much since there's much events ahead with so many out-of-the-blue activities hijacking the training programme. Trainees gonna suffer much with the little time left for them when there's so much to accomplish during the next 3 weeks. Gosh.