ruwth is writing...

~ Confidence Course ~

~ Confidence Course ~

I am writing this for "HONORING OUR VETERANS " , a contest for stories or poems related to the military. My story is going to be one of my basic training memories.

I entered the United States Air Force as a thirty year old woman. I tell a bit about it in an earlier entry: "~ Basic Training ~" .

Today, I am going to share another tidbit: my experience with the Air Force "Confidence Course".

As I prepared to write this entry, I found this:

The original obstacle course, which was built in November 1942, was about a mile to a mile and a half long depending on what obstacles were open. Of the 14 obstacles, the two water obstacles would close seasonally affecting the course length.1

I could not remember how many total obstacles there were in the course and until reading this article, I did not know the two water obstacles were sometimes closed.

They were open when I ran the course in 1982. They are the only two obstacles I clearly remember. They are ones I want to tell you about today.

To graduate from Basic Training, we had to successfully complete this obstacle course. Passing meant making it through at least twelve of the fourteen challenges. The last two challenges of the day were our two "water challenges".

As I approached the first water challenge, my body had already been pushed close to my limits. I stood on the edge of a small rectangular pool and the muscles in my legs were twitching from the exertions of the first twelve obstacles. Those twelve had taken everything I could muster but the good news was I had passed them all.

The good news was that I had already passed the course. There were only two more obstacles and even if I failed them, I already had my 12/14.

I stood on the side of the pool, legs trembling, and did NOT have confidence that I would be able to meet this first water challenge.

The leaders were at the far end of this pool. They would swing a rope to me and I had to grab the rope and swing across to the other side.

One problem: the rope did not reach all the way to my side. They would swing the rope to me and I would have to jump out and catch the rope in the air. If I missed, I would fall into the pool below and fail the challenge. If I managed to catch the rope, I had to quickly jump off on the other side.

I did not expect to be able to catch the rope but I was wrong. I sprung through the air and successfully had that rope tightly grasped. I was half-way to success.

One problem: I was so surprised, I neglected to jump off on the other side. I missed the one opportunity I had to successfully disembark and, as the rope and I swung back, I found myself hanging over the middle of the pool with no where to go but into the water: splash.

One down and one to go. I walked through the sparkling clean water and climbed out on the other side. I was drenched. The only thing dry was the top of my head as I approached the final obstacle.

I was confident I would easily pass this one—or so I thought.

This last challenge was like a very long ladder that went over a dirty, slimy, nasty, yucky waterway. Our task was simply to go rung over rung to the other side. My grandfather had built us a swing set when I was young. The sides and top of the swing set were like ladders. I had gone rung to rung across that swing set many, many times. I was prepared for the piece-of-cake challenge.

As we approached this obstacle, there was an airman standing there offering a towel to dry our hands with. Sadly, most of the flight had, like me, fallen into the crystal clear pool and, like me, they were drenched. There was only one towel. By the time it was my turn to dry my hand, the towel was dripping wet.

The thought of trying to move rung to rung with wet hands was a bit disconcerting. Then I had an idea. The hair on the top of my head was dry. As I prepared to grab a rung and step off, I dried my palms the best I could by rubbing them on that bit of dry hair.

Yay! It worked. I began easily moving forward.

I got all the way to this center when I encountered an unexpected difficulty. The girl in front of me had STOPPED. I had no choice but to stop and wait for her. Everyone was yelling at her to move on or drop. Everybody but me.

I was focusing on holding on for dear life but it seems that her ability to hold on was greater than mine. I made a decision to try and pass her. Unfortunately, the side rails were too big around for me to grasp and that led to another splash—into the dirty, slimy, nasty, yucky water.

Suddenly, everyone was yelling at me—I was swimming in the wrong direction! When I got closer to the bank I realized my mistake and my flight was glad when I turned around. I actually think there was applause when I finally climbed up on the bank.

I had dramatically failed the second water challenge but, thankfully, I had passed the Confidence Course. I didn't feel a burst of confidence though. All I felt was relief it was over.


Word Count: 966 words

~ ~ ~ JESUS is LORD! ~ ~ ~

Footnotes
1  Taken from a public relations article written by Senior Airman Krystal Jeffers 502nd Air Base Wing Public Affairs (https://www.jbsa.mil/News/News/Article/874237/bmt-trainees-complete-last-run-on-...)