9:00am.
Arrived at the station for pick up, coach was already there ready for all new selection recruits to board.
9:30am
Arrived in base, then taken into the adsc reception area where we are issued a number and for 2 days your name is not important you are now known as a number.
You are then shown to your dorm and given a locker for your personal luggage.
After everyone is back to reception after storing your stuff away its off the the medical wing, this will take up the remainder of the morning, fingers crossed you pass fine.
12:00pm
Lunch
1:00pm
Back to the Adsc center inside your base then its your physical tests eg. Heaves, back extension, static lift and then jerry can carry which is easier than you would think
Be prepared for alot of sitting around during your stay as some things do take time as there are alot of recruits to go through certain processes,
just remember to never have hands in your pockets Never! and sit up straight at all times.
The rest of the early afternoon was taken up with talks about army life then In the Icebreaker Room people took turns to stand up and talk about themselves. 3 minute talk covering theses aspects which are on a board for you to see.
Name and Age.
Where your from,
Family life,
What regiment your planning to join and why,
What can you give then army,Strong points and weak points,
Whats your ambition in life,
And your most memorable moment in life so far.
Remember to Speak loud and confidently try not to fidget too much and always keep hands behind your back,
There will be a senior staff member there taking notes about each persons
icebreaker and he will review it after to you and your fellow recruits,
Poor, average or Good
It all counts towards your end interview so be confident.
Before dinner we had a PT Lesson,
Now the Fun starts *cough**cough*
The PT Instructers are the best of the best no doubt about that, This Lesson is to give you a basic insight into what to expect when you have a PT lesson in phase 1 training, Its gonna be hard and trust me when i say a few people will drop out of selection at this stage.
The instucters want people to drop out here cause this will single out the people that are commited and the people that are not.
Run around the rugby pitch and back as fast as you can the last 5 run again ect, you all get back and its not fast enough RUN again still not fast enough run around again,
At this stage your legs are nearly gone but adrenaline gets you through,
I could go on in detail about this lesson but it will differ depending on the instructers, just never give up and you will get through it.
After the PT lesson you see the lads that droped out waiting for pick up out of the camp and you really have a sense of achievement that you didnt give up.
Then its the evening meal, which i must say is a high standard i enjoyed my meals at the base, then again i probley would of enjoyed anything cause i needed the energy.
Back after the evening meal for a Grenade lesson which you will take notes on and will need to revise these notes as you will have a little test about this the next day.
This pretty much sums up day one,
Lights out is at 11pm But after that PT lesson we was all exhausted and in our bunks at 9pm we turned the lights out ourselves at 9:20pm
Wake up call is at 4:55am
But we set our phone alarms to go off at 4:30am and was all prepared for when the instructers came in to their surprise.
The morning was set off with a talk at what to expect in phase 1 training and phase 2 ( there was a guy behind me that feel asleep during this talk and got a big bollockin so stay sharp
)Followed by breakfast be advised to have a big breakfast as you will have time before your run so you wont run on a full belly,
Then it was back for the grenade test, Very easy test of 10 questions if u revised and payed attention you should know the answers easy.
A bit of sitting around and getting ready for your run then follows,
our run was at 8:15am
The 1.5m Run
All in shorts and t-shirts (damn it was cold at first) you are taken to your starting point then the PTI will show you around the course in brisk walk and some jogging to warm you up and show you the layout of the run,
Then back to the start and its the run best effort time, it really was my best effort because i did it 1:30secs better than my personal best, much to do with adrenaline that made me get through it faster.
There will be eyes on you the whole run senior officers all over watching you, and yes they do know the old tricks (shoe laces need done up ect) if you shoes needs tieing just let your shoe fall off you will get more marks for it
After the Run its the Grenade Practical lesson, which was one of the fun parts of the 2 days. no point going into detail about it.
Straight after the Grenade lesson was Team tasks.
Team-Tasks
Team task, really is what it says -team- these are harder than alot of people think, there are 4 tasks to do here.
You are split into 4 teams each team will have an instructer with that team and a senior officer that is marking you.
The instructer will give you a senario like, Your troops are stuck on one side of a mine field without ammo and your team need to get the ammo across the mine field without touching the floor and seting off the mines ect. Use the materials given to get the task completed in 10 mins each task.
You are then given 2 mins as a team to come up with a plan and you all need to know what the plan is because he was ask you all random questions regarding the plan.
no slip ups here guys you really need to be able to answer his questions when he asks because its a pass or fail situation and you dont want to mess up your whole 2 days on theses team tasks.
Passing each task is not a must just work as fast as possible and part of a team remember there is 4 tasks to do with diffrent senarios.
Once you finish each task you do tend to think wow we could of done this alot faster if we got our plan worked out better at the start.
After team tasks its Shower and then your final interviews,
I wish all new entrants all the best and hope this summary of my experiance helps you mentally prepare for what to expect on your 2 day selection.
Good Luck and remember give it 110% work ethic these 2 days will go fast but if you try your hardest you will be proud of yourselves for weeks that follows.
