Posted: 9/29/2005 9:10:26 AM EDT
| What do I need to expect for PLDC? Prepare just physically? Mentally? Thanks Chris. |
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Sounds like a cake walk, I went through Ft Campbell, had to sing the screaming eagles song everywhere we went, what fun. Brush up on land nav if you can, and make sure your push ups are allllllll the way down,,, they were crazy when it came to the pt test. Have fun,,,,, boy those were the days...... Oh yeah, keep your mouth shut, let someone else be the class clown the cadre can pick on. |
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Brush up on land nav, and be prepared to run into pogues who haven't been to the field since Basic/ AIT. Seriously...... Half of our squad was female, all of them city-born who knew nothing of the woods, and freaked out the first night of bivouac "She saw a spider!" and wanted to sleep in the deuce.  I got stuck with one of them on the night land-nav portion, and literally had to hold her hand through the entire course since she was freaking at the snap of every twig, and literally tried to climb ME when an owl hooted in a nearby snag.... (She was kinda cute though, so...  )It was an entertaining few weeks coming from the unit I was in. YMMV |
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If you happen to use the Tenino map remember these three things: 1. Tenino is pronounced "tee-nine-oh" (t-9-o) not "te-knee-no" 2. Bucoda is pronounced "bew-code-uh" not "boo-code-uh" 3. It's not "Blumquil hill" (or whatever it said) it's supposed to say Bluemiear Hill. (I can't recall the right spelling either) 4. If trying to pronounce the name Skookumchuck, just take a deep breath, remember your high school english classes and sound it out. skook-um-chuck. Tenino is where I grew up, so I have to do every little bit I can to set people straight on that. |
| PLDC at Ft Hood is easy, went through a couple years ago after we got back from OIF 1. Biggest thing is the written exam, before I PCS'ed I was sending guys to PLDC and they now carry a laptop instead of the 50-60 lbs of books I had to carry to and from the SDC. Problem with the laptops is you cannot sticky tab them like you can the books, so when you need to find something for your test it is a good idea to actually take notes and write down which FM/AR and what page on your computer to find it once you open the file. Land nav is easy, I got a 4/4 on the first day in under an hour (you get a practice and a test day, most people are passed with "gos" on the practice day). I think the worst part of PLDC was that I could practically see my house from the third floor of the barracks at night, but couldnt go home. Here in Hawaii at least the PLDC is out on east range so youre nowhere near any form of housing other than PLDC itself. Have fun, it goes by quick. |
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I went through PLDC at Camp Ashland, NE. I was an 11B, the only one in my classroom. For an 11B, don't make the field "missions" any harder than they are. And yes, the PT thing that was mentioned is no shit, at least at ashland. If you fail, you get 1 retest. Unfortunately, I failed the run the 1st time for some reason. On the retest, I wasn't feeling like a total bag of ass and passed the PT test no problem. There was one person there that failed their run retest by 2 seconds and got sent home. All in all, it was a fairly simple course. Long days, but not hard. BTW- the land nav is pretty much a joke where I went. You don't even need a compass. |
| I went in Germany. The whole land nav course was flat with roads. I just walked the roads and measured from intersections the whole time. 4 on the practice and 4 on the real thing with enough time left over to do a few practice runs through the brush and enjoy nature. |
I have not been, but my wife has. From what she said Land Nav is the biggest event, with PT being necessary to staying (which is why she needs to go back, run by 30s). It sounds a lot like Phase 1 OCS. We did three days of practice Land Nav and one day of testing. Ended up handrailing the roads as much as possible, just with care as they didn't like us doing that. All good clean fun and I got 7/7 day and 5/5 night. Even avoided the boulder strewn hill leading up to my first point on the night course . . . 1.2 miles across a hillside with knee-high boulders convinced me that taking the road was the only way to go. |