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Command Decisions Becoming an Air Force offi cer8A Sunday, May 4, 2008 Montgomery Advertiser

Officer Trainee Armando Rodriguez calls cadence during Flight 3-13’s pennant test.

Tiger Flight earns pennantBy Jenn Rowell

jrowell@gannett.com

About a month into training, Flight 3-13 hadthe first chance to earn a pennant.

A pennant, blue with flight number in yellow,allows a flight to march around the Officer Train-ing School complex without its commander, up-perclassmen or student peers.

The flag symbolizes the cohesiveness of theflight — and the only way to earn it is to demon-strate that cohesiveness.

Flights must march together in formation toearn a pennant. Students know, though, that itcan be taken away by their commander at anytime if they’re not working as a team.

Other flights at OTS have all tested for theirpennants at least once. Now, it’s Flight 3-13’s turn.

The flight’s commander, Capt. David Finlay,hopes the group can get its pennant on the firsttry. The group has scored high on everything elseso far.

During the test, a military training instructorgives the flight leader a drill card, which lists in-structions that must be completed in order. Theflight leader can add movements but cannotchange the order.

The flight members are nervous and make amajor mistake — turning left instead of right —and they fail the first test.

Watching other flights get their pennants istough for the members of Flight 3-13. Their conso-lation is that they scored higher than the otherflights on their first written test.

A few days later, the flight takes its pennanttest again. OT David Hornsby is the flight leader.He walks them through the drill card quickly andFinlay remarks that they did well.

The instructor debriefs the flight and Finlay.There are a few things they can improve, so the in-structor has them test again after a short break.This time Flight 3-13 passes the test.

Finlay gives the members their pennant butwarns they need to score higher on the secondwritten test and the first physical fitness test.Flight 3-13 must continue to earn the right to keepit.

A week later, the flight didn’t reach its goal onthe second written test and wasn’t performingwell. Finlay took the pennant away.

The members of Flight 3-13 weren’t happyabout it.

Within a few days, they’d earned it back — andare marching it proudly.

Officer Trainee Armando Rodriguez,right, salutes Military Training InstructorShane Peak as he takes command of theflight before their drill evaluation.

Photos by Mickey Welsh Advertiser

Air Force officer trainees of Flight 3-13 practice close-order drill commands duringtheir pennant test last month. After earning the blue pennant, OTS students canmarch under their own supervision.

OTS: First academictest boost to morale

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From Page 1A

going to fly a multimillion-dol-lar airplane?” she asked rhetori-cally.

For Hernandez, managingtime is her biggest struggle. Herdays are filled with books, gunsand obstacles. At night, she goesback to the books.

Seckinger’s team, Flight 3-13,has done well with book learn-ing. Not long ago, the flightscored higher than any of theother five on the school’s Con-solidated Written Test.

It was the first of the school’sthree written tests. The ques-tions are wide-ranging, from AirForce core values, customs andcourtesies and military law tothe role of airpower, leadershipskills, team building, manage-ment and problem solving.

To prepare, the members ofFlight 3-13 each completed theirstudy materials, signed an in-tegrity agreement and then com-piled their notes to study as agroup.

Erik Easterling took hisshare of hard tests when he wasan undergraduate studying tobe an electrical engineer, butthe OTS tests have given newmeaning to the word “grueling,”he said.

Paper into practiceIt didn’t take long for the stu-

dents, or OTs (officer trainees),to discover that it’s not easy totake all the things they learnedin the classroom and apply themin the field.

“Paper to kinetics. It’s hardto translate from paper to —how am I going to get this bucketto this place?” OT Bryan Alle-bone said.

Joshua Barela, a trainee whoserved four years in the Navy,thinks the building-block phi-losophy helps.

“It’s good to learn step-by-step, and eventually it will be-come fluid,” he said. “It hasn’tyet, but it will.”

Classroom lessons help inthe field, but can be hard to re-member under pressure, Her-nandez said.

“Sometimes we forget thatwe have to apply the academicsin the field,” Hernandez said.“But I think it’s really startingto settle in that you really dohave to use them.”

Even after nearly eight yearsas an enlisted airman, Allebonefinds OTS challenging.

“It was kind of an Achillesheel to think that prior servicewould help, but a lot of thethings I know aren’t em-phasized here,” he said.

Allebone and his fellow OTswith prior service are consid-ered assets to Flight 3-13, be-cause they can share their expe-rience. There’s an extrachallenge for those who come

from the other branches, how-ever. David Tiller has had toput aside his Navy ways andlearn Air Force jargon, cus-toms and heritage.

At first, Allebone wonderedif his flight mates with no priorservice would be at a distinctdisadvantage. But that wasn’tthe case.

“They’re so driven and en-thusiastic,” he said. “You cansee where they have to try hard-er — and they are.”

Tiller is impressed with allthe members of his flight.

“I’ve never been in a groupwith, I guess you could say, somany stars in one group,” hesaid. “It humbles me. I’mamazed by my peers.”

Think fast, act faster.BELPS are scenarios. One

student is tapped leader, thengets 20 minutes to finish thetask. It’s up to the leader towork with his team members tocome up with a way to accom-plish the mission.

“This is a rude awakening,”said Capt. David Finlay, whocommands Flight 3-13. “If some-one gets an outstanding on this,they don’t need to be here.”

After the mission, Finlayhelps the leader evaluate his orher performance in accom-plishing the task.

Casey Ordoyne is leader forthe first scenario. He and histeam have to transport ammu-nition cans and an injured stu-dent, Hernandez, to a specifiedpoint. They make it only to thefirst of four checkpoints.

Finlay tells the flight thatOrdoyne appeared to be in com-mand and knew the missionbut didn’t convey a sense of ur-gency.

“You should be building oneach other, learn from the mis-takes of the ones who went be-fore you,” Finlay told membersof Flight 3-13 during the de-briefing.

Lonnie Middleton is thenext to lead the team. His chal-lenge is building a marker tohelp rescuers find a downedairplane. The marker, to bemade of boards and cinder-blocks, has to be carried to thecrash site. To make the missioneven more difficult, an enemy

BELPS Page 9A

�Audio from OTS

Photos by Mickey Welsh Advertiser

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Photos taken during training at the Air Force OfficerTraining School. 1) Flight commander David Finlay, left,watches and takes notes as officer trainees work to-gether on a BELPS training scenario at Officer TrainingSchool at Maxwell Air Force Base. 2) Officer traineesArmando Rodriguez, left, and Erik Easterling carry alarge pole during a BELPS exercise. 3) Officer TraineeDavid Hornsby takes a compass reading during BELPS.

ON PAGE 1A: Officer trainees from Flight 3-13 partici-pate in a BELPS exercise that required the evacuation ofinjured troops. Officer Trainee Kelsi Seckinger workswith her flightmates during a BELPS exercise.

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