July 15, 1997 - WS-3 Qualified

970716 - Yesterday I qualified WS-3. It consisted of wading 50 meters with flak jacket, kevlar [helmet], and alice pack [back pack]; jumping off a 5 foot platform and swimming 25 meters, both also with full gear. Last night M______ was on duty but he wasn't too bad. This morning consisted of a 3-mile run (21 min.) and 1 circle around the circuit course. We had a class on terrorism and then chow. After chow we had swim qual for WS-2 but there was lightning so I didn't get a chance to try. I'm tired because I have had firewatch from 0300-0400 for the past two nights. I can't wait to sleep but I'm very motivated. 44 days left...
 WS-4 and WS-3, the two lowest levels of swim qualification, require very little actual swimming. For WS-3, in fact, there pretty much none. Because the alice pack contained a waterproof bag, it essentially served as a floatation device. That meant that, even with all of the extra gear, staying above the surface of the water was simply a matter of leaning back onto your pack and letting it do the work. Then you could propel yourself with a sort of bicycle kick.

In looking for some pictures of swim qualification, I found a couple of websites that have some information about it and learned that it has changed quite a bit in the years since I left the Marines. Click here for an article about Swim Qualification from boot camp (2008) and here for information about the new requirements. For the purposes of the levels reached in boot camp, the main difference is that levels 3 and 4 are combined now, which I think makes sense.

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