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Officer Training Theme song-Whatcha Gonna Do, PL?
07/24/07
From four different commissioning sources- ROTC for those attending a civilian university; the Military Academy (West Point); OCS which provides a path to the officer corps for enlisted soldiers; and "direct commission," a "fast track" officer spring traditionally reserved for entering doctors and lawyers as it allows selectees to forgo some officer training, but, because of an officer shortage, not an uncommon officer starting place in 2007- all new officers converge onto either Ft. Sill or Ft. Benning for what's called BOLC II (BOLC I is OCS), a kind of combat basics course. After BOLC II, officers disperse again to the schools for their respective branch which the Army calls, BOLC III.
After BOLC 3, most newly minted LTs go on to become Platoon Leaders or "PLs." A platoon has around 40 soldiers and can be further broken down into squads (which themselves can be divided into teams). Several platoons make up a company and it goes up from there through battalion, brigade, division, and all the way up to corps.
Anyways, the job being important, the training can be intense at times. This song lovingly satirizes some of the teaching techniques employed by those who train lieutenants. I'd like to warn you that it has some rough language so, if that offends you, skip to another post.
Lieutenant Dan from Forrest Gump was a platoon leader.
From SoundsofSWC.
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9 comments, 2 trackbacks
In this instance it is Patrol Leader. Believe me. There are plenty more songs from this band at the link http://soundsofswc.com/ 
Yeah. This is definitely about ranger school, and is reffering to anyone who is the patrol leader -not neccessarily an officer. And BTW, TAB CHECK!! There are some really good legitimate exercise research journals out there where you can read countless books from some of the best strength coaches and trainers in the world. Soak up the info from some of the best nutritional books and journals from t...
I just finished BOLC II and every single thing that the song says applies to this course. I commissioned through ROTC and I was laughing my ass off... PS PL stands for Platoon Leader and even though it applies to ranger school it also applies to BOLC II word by word.
2LT Arias
As a Ranger School grad and an OCS commissioned Infantry Officer, I can tell you that I heard this type of stress technique in both schools. It equally applies to Patrol Leader and Platoon Leader. 
Why all the worry about weather it's for Patrol or Platoon leader. Everyone in the forces complain about how crappy things are being run and say how the would change it. Trust me I know I'm doing it this very day. just listen to the song and laugh about it. One day someone like you will be put in this position and then you'll be screwed. So laugh. 
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