Is There An Officer Crucible?

[shimbo]

The best part about sule 2 in my humble opinion was eating along the way. During that 15 min to cammie up, i didn't get to eat so i just stuffed as much food in my pockets as possible and all along the way i was eating. It helped pass the time.

This reminds me of a funny story. My SI said before we set off that chow is continuours, ya und-sta-dat? Aye SSGT.....well halfway into our evolution, a major happened to be following us and reemed two candidates for eating and not being tactical. Our SSGT came over and immediately yelled at teh candidates for eating. He made them do pushups, etc. We were all dumbfounded. Luckily no one was stupid enough to repeat what the SSGT told us before we stepped off.

As for SULE II, yes it has changed significantly from previous years. Most of you may have experienced the run back and forth from a squad evolution to the LRC. That has changed. Now they have the squad evolutions spread out all over the place and they make us run from one evolution to the next.

During this OCS restructuring phase, some candidates may have been the guinea pigs for a new training evolution called SULE X. I was OCS seniors the year after they tested it out and luckily didn't have to do it.

 

[jamnww]

As for SULE II, yes it has changed significantly from previous years. Most of you may have experienced the run back and forth from a squad evolution to the LRC. That has changed. Now they have the squad evolutions spread out all over the place and they make us run from one evolution to the next.

So what is its current form? Duration, distance run, etc...and how does that compare to what it used to be?

 

[Crowbar]

Uh, DocT gave a pretty accurate description of it. It's shorter and less intense than the one.

 

[esday1]

I'm not sure exactly how things worked the "old way," but here are the major SULE and related events as they were for the 2004 10-week class:
SULE 1 was a bunch of LRC-type problems in a fire team, running between each problem. The course was marked with an "x" on the signs, so this might have been the old SULE-X.
Fire team in the O was, just like it sounds, a bunch of fire team assaults with each team member leading one assault.
Squad in the O- this day started out with a 10 mile night hump. Then half the candidates did squad assaults while the other half ran down to the LRC, with the groups switching around noon. The night IMC was that night as well.
SULE II started out with a 12-mile night hump. The SULE events were squad problems (although the nature of the problems varied a lot, some were more like the LRC and SULE I and some were more tactical-type problems, or a combination), with run between most of the problems. Most candidates were done with that one by around 1800.
My impression was that the old SULE I and SULE II were mainly fire team and squad assaults, respectively (although SULE II included more stuff like the night hump, LRC, and a bunch of other stuff that we didn't do including the helo move to TBS ). The OCS XO explained to us at one point that they had changed the format of SULE II so that it would be less predictable than doing a similar squad assault each time. Can someone who went through the "old" format tell me if this is accurate?

 

[jamnww]

The OCS XO explained to us at one point that they had changed the format of SULE II so that it would be less predictable than doing a similar squad assault each time. Can someone who went through the "old" format tell me if this is accurate?

If that is true then I would say thats a good description as the "old" format was essentially 15 squad assualts all essentially the same...and always up a hill...

 

[DBLang]

Just to clarify, I graduated Juniors back in summer of '04. I had just finished my freshmen year, so most of my buddies from Juniors have finished Seniors and I'm still waiting to go.

 

[CitizenReloaded]

this is long but bear with me

SULE X/SULE I

I went to juniors in 2003 and seniors in 2004

My juniors company was the first to do SULE X (which was turned into the new SULE I when I returned for seniors a year later)

From what I recall, SULE X wasn't bad at all. Fire teams (4 men) start somewhere in the training area, with helmets, weapons, canteens, and ammo. They run to the first problem, where the first candidate takes a crack at it. After finishing, the team runs to the next problem, and so on. Distance between the problems is between 0.5 and 1.5 miles.
Points can be added and subtracted should your fire team pass another, or get passed.

All in all, it wasn't very hard. We didn't run it right after a hump.

That was the easy part - and the easy parts stopped after that.

Unplesant Suprise

At the end of week 4, we saw on the schedule that we had a night hump pushing off at 0100 friday morning.

They lied to us.

That Thursday afternoon, we humped out to Buffalow pond for a tactics demo, which was about 7 miles total. Unfortunately, the red flag was out and we didn't have a chance to get dry socks or even water.

When we got back, we ate chow, went back to the squadbay, where we were told to pack up, Echo co had a surprise BIVOUAC tonight.

We went out to the field, got about 30 mins sleep, woke up, did a 12 mile hump, stopped at the LRC, got a few mins for chow while the corpsmen tended to our feet, which now looked like they had been fed into stumpgrinders.

After the LRC problems, we humped back to the BIVOUAC area, packed up our gear, went back to the field, and did squad in the O for 5 or 6 hours. This is when the monsoon started, and those sweaty socks got soaked.

After the Squad in the O, we then went to the IMC to do the night version of the course. And following that fun, we finally got to return to the squadbay - I've never been more happy to see that building.

all told we did about 26 miles in a little more than a day.

SULE II

For this, you'll start with a 13 mile (give or take) night hump.

After that, you break off into squads, and, just like SULE I, you run from problem to problem until everybody gets their turn. Your squad will get ambushed, have to secure an objective (I had to cross an open field to secure a head on the other side). You could have to cross a trench, find ammo cans, anything.
Distances between problems can really add up - on my SULE we criss-crossed the training area several times. Expect a total of 10-15 miles of running between problems, not including fireman-carrying casualties up Da Nang (fun!)

Evaluations change every year, but a few things stay the same:

1. you will cover many miles
2. you will get no useful rest
3. you will be miserable

But, every step you take is one closer to being done. A positive attitude is stronger than any death march the OCS powers that be can engineer.

 

[Killer2]

When I went back to Srs SULE I was on week two I think and was one of the easiest days in the field even under Black Flag conditions. Seriously SULE I is not that bad.

SULE II on the other hand will suck, but can suck even more depending on you instructor, who travels the whole way with you. I had a SSGT who just got back from Iraq and said

Hey if I run you ass up that hill and your spent then thats where the fight will happen and thats where you get shot and die. But if we take it a little slower before we get to the fight then when you take that hill you will still have some left to take it to them.

My other platoon mates didn't have it so good and sprinted the whole 12-15 mi. Only slowing down to do a problem then it was hauling ass to the next objective. So its really the luck of the draw. (So glad I'm done with that.)