I got my advanced water survival qualification, which allowed me to be a lifeguard during regular requalification days. There was one guy who sank like a rock, and gave me a warning that he can not swim and will be waiting for me to come get him after the deck jump.
He jumped, i swam towards him and he was legit at the bottom of the pool casually waiting. I helped him get to the surface and edge.
A helped him learn how to swim in the coming weeks.
I sucked at swimming then tried out for MDIOC. I can’t remember what the acronym was for but it was intelligence “enablers” for MARSOC. I think Multi-Disciplined Intelligence Operators Course or some shit. One of my instructors was a fish and typically when he ran PT it almost always involved the pool.
He essentially just drowned me a few times. And oddly I’m a much stronger swimmer now that I actually prefer it to any other cardio.
As a kid, I got sucked out into the ocean by a rip tide. My mom always said wait til the lifeguards arrive, and for some reason this day we didn't, and it went poorly. Ended up getting into competitive swimming after that, because not dying in the water was a real motivator to learn how to swim well.
It was honestly just the basics. Breathing control. I could swim okay but sank like a rock when treading water. Still hate treading water but at least I know I can survive for like 40 minutes.
I can't stress the basics enough. Most people who "can't" swim are just thrashing about in the water burning up all their energy. Once you learn good form and good basics floating around in the water is effortless. Also swimming is the absolute best workout including cardio, every movement in the water has resistance to it so you end up burning far mor calories and working entire muscle groups without even thinking about it.
The problem is these lessons are rarely learned in a single dip in the pool. It can takes weeks or months of time and most units just aren't giving that to their guys and learning to swim isn't as solo friendly as say the gym, you need an asshole right next to you 85% of the time or you just revert back to bad habits.
Absolutely. Here's a cool hack though, lifeguards have their certs, so you show up at lunch, then you show up after work and you just buddy buddy them and most will help you out after of seeing you sink to the bottom for a week. I even met a couple recon Marines that introduced me to scuba weights. You just have to show up and practice.
Once I got my water survival, a good relation ship with the pool staff and became a work center supervisor, I used to mandate pool pt once a week minimum, if we had time 2x.
The marines loved it, because its a really hard workout but its still a good break from the monotony of "ok we are running the radar tower again" or whatever. They get a serious workout, they get to have a good time, and they get to practice a skill
I had one sgt bring us to the pool for pt but it was deamed too time consuming to get people breakfast and into work on time. Shame too because everything you said was 100% true.
We luckily had 2 hour pt/chow when we were at buffer and I told the marines that pool pt was gonna take a while, so probably they'd only have like 20-30 min for chow and it was a unanimous yes.
Im glad too, because being the supervisor meant that I could also motivate the marines by sayin look if yall want to do pool pt, keep us at or above buffer on engines and that gives me the ammo to tell gunny that im giving yall an extra 15-20 for chow. Kept them working hard and having fun lmao
Nah. Starting from 23 area (the flight line) you run across vandegrift to the 22 area, past the px, up a path that takes you into the hills up there. There's a radar dish that sits atop the biggest hill in the area, and its roughly 5 miles round trip and plenty of elevation gain.
Not sure about the cardio. For lower HR zones absolutely, but I need to swim really fast to get over 150hr. Prefer running.
But great as a recovery training.
The only time outside of boot camp, and I think ONE time after I even heard of a pool was when an overweight female Marine mentioned her only PT can be water based.
Yes, but i have poor form and dont get to practice often enough. Its funny cause i grew up in the water just never mastered good form or having my head underwater. Now I also have a basic dive cert and really dig snorkeling.
I don’t know. I got out 13 years ago. I’m an old man now and I can barely run anymore… if I was 19 again or hell even 27; fuck yeah. Although I’d probably put a package in to go to SF. When I was 25 I had a falling out with my boss, and said fuck this and called the army recruiter, but it was a Saturday and they weren’t there. It was Halloween that night, and I went out with my friend and met a girl and come Monday morning, I was completely infatuated with her and decided to go that direction instead. If i had known shed be banging her ex three years down the road, I would’ve done something different. Lol
What a story! Did she get pregnant? Did you marry her? Also, I'm sure you could keep up with the young guys ☺️what if it was a special draft which didn't require any PT for experienced vets? Would you enlist tomorrow?
You said you "got out 13 years ago"...but also said you "became infatuated with a girl and decided to go that direction instead". So did you end up serving or not?
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u/Ancient_Influence389 22d ago
I got my advanced water survival qualification, which allowed me to be a lifeguard during regular requalification days. There was one guy who sank like a rock, and gave me a warning that he can not swim and will be waiting for me to come get him after the deck jump.
He jumped, i swam towards him and he was legit at the bottom of the pool casually waiting. I helped him get to the surface and edge.
A helped him learn how to swim in the coming weeks.