A second year's opinion on BOLC

I got my official reservation for BOLC, Basic Officer Leadership Course (medical officer basic training), in the email this week.  It's really happening.  Maybe I'll start to feel more like a officer in the military after BOLC.  As it's coming up in a few months I had a few questions.  Luckily for me I had a second year Army HPSP student to talk to about it.

At an event I started talking to one of the second year students about BOLC, or officer basic training.  He told me a great many things, such as it's a lot easier than you think.  You don't have to worry about failing your physical fitness test.  You only do about thirty minutes a day of physical fitness.  You get a lot of time to yourself to do whatever you want.  You can get hurt if you don't pay attention.  The tests and quizzes are a joke for a med student, though some people (usually not med students) still fail sometimes.  There's only other medical officers (dentists, doctors, vets, nurses, etc.) at the training and most of them are a bit older than your typical first year med student.  And you meet an incredibly diverse set of people.

A worry of mine about joining the military has been about the homophobia that might be present.  I know Don't Ask, Don't Tell is long gone, but certain attitudes might still remain.  When this worry was brought up to the second year, he said not to worry.  At BOLC, the Army kills you by powerpoints about a lot of different topics including how to be a leader, sexual harassment, and discrimination.  The official stance is don't be a douche and don't discriminate.  Now I pretty much get along with everyone, though I don't doubt there are some people would like to see the gays out of the military.  Even still the second year's words made me feel better about my decision.  It's a different country now than it was ten, twenty years ago.  I love being able to serve proudly, while still being the best version of myself.  

2LT Lister