CLC3 Day 39: 200m swim, Distribution

Well, my toe is in the door on the GAFPB -- I did the 200m swim this morning. As a 30+ year-old, I had to do it within 7 minutes; I finished at 6:21. It was not pretty, and I just did the backstroke the whole time, but I'm done with that.

In class we studied Distribution, Highway Regulations, Joint Task Force - Port Opening, and Rail Operations. Most of it was stuff I'd already seen back in spring 2009 at BOLC III, so no big revelations. Still, I learned some interesting things, even if they probably weren't intended.

First, the field manual for distribution (FM 55-10) was written back in 1997. The past 15 years of war have not changed anything in our underlying doctrine. Although there are a lot of formulae, I've learned that there aren't many uses for them at this stage in our Afghanistan operations. They're really only good for theater openings hundreds of vehicles per convoy -- the kind of things we did in Iraq back in 2003.

In the afternoon a major spoke to us about the Surface Deployment and Distribution Command (SDDC), the people at Scott Air Force Base (near St. Louis) who manage the United States' global surface distribution network. As a Transportation officer and a former Illinois resident, I thought it would be cool to work at the SDDC at some point in my career.