On the 2nd of December, after a week of vacation in Malta, I began Officer's School in Bülach. Up until this point the Führungsunterstützungs Offiziersschule 30 (FU OS 30) had been in Frauenfeld. In a way, we were guinea pigs, as much of the logistical details, facilities and exercises were being done for the first time here.
After the Korpsvisite (the introduction of all the officers and class teachers at the beginning of a course or school), we got settled as best we could in our rooms (6 guys to a room, the smallest room I've ever been in during my time in the army). We also met for the first time our class teacher and his aide: Major F. and Lieutenant H. The Major is an old school bunker artillery gunner (a function they no longer train in the SAF) he has a very sarcastic humor and straightforward practical way of doing things. It took some time to come to appreciate it, in the long run however his opinion is one I learned to respect and heed (not only because he was my superior, but because there was no bureaucratic non-sense involved and he gave practical, real world advice) The Lieutenant began his service as an infantry grenadier (a detail we only learned of at the very end of Officer school) but after and accident in the 5th week of boot camp and some surgery had to change functions and ended up with the Transmission and Communication Corps as a "Richtstrahlpionier" (Lit.:Direction Beam Pioneer, they are responsible for line of sight communications in alpine areas) He then choose to become an officer and is now on track to become a professional Officer.
After settling into our rooms, in the evening before dinner we had an intro test about the basics of the Army, Swiss history, the geography of Switzerland and other stuff along that line. Thereafter we had the 5km "Waffenlauf" (Gun Run) in which you put your assault rifle in your otherwise empty combat backpack and go for a run. The time limit was 31 minutes and I finished somewhere between 26 and 27 minutes. The following day we received our personal Officers material including the Pistol 75, the Officer's Box and a third set of Combat Boots. Having a new side arm was, and still is very exciting.
Early on Thursday morning, Exercise "DARKSIDE" began. The exercise was "Band of Brothers" themed and was very exciting. I had the opportunity to be our class' platoon leader for most of the exercise. Despite being a rather taxing job, being platoon leader was an exciting and valuable experience. The exercise lasted until Friday afternoon and saw us set up a bivouac area, get dropped off (like WW2 paratroopers) without any maps or any other direction aid or locating device aside from a compass, and need to find our way back to the rendez-vous point in Frauenfeld, as well as fire our pistols for the first time.
All in all, it was a good first week. There were 14 of us in our class, the Army Translation Officer class. We are now part of the Transmissions and Communications Corps, which belongs to the Air Force, and not the Army. The objective of an officer school is to train and prepare individuals to become platoon leaders and officers. in the FU OS, there is only one Translation Officer class once every two years. Some of the training and exercises are geared towards platoon leaders. Us Translation Officers will never be platoon leaders, or have our own recruits. Because the officer school is not geared towards us (which is fine and good) the previous Translation Officer class created a bad reputation that we would have to face at every turn. Instead of just manning up and getting it over with, many of the previous Translation Officers (or so I was told) complained and made a fuss about needing to accomplish tasks geared toward leadership and leading a platoon. Because of this reputation, any of the class teachers were loath to take responsibility of and lead our class. We really lucked out with our Major, who proved to be the best of the three throughout the course of officer school.
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