Got the FTO Book Done

I had a goal to complete my FTO book today at the SO. I was with Zehm. We spent several hours going through the final couple pages getting the final check-offs completed. With that done I can apply to go to second class status. I will be the first in my class to do that. In second class status I will get a chance to work with another second class reserve and the other first class guys. Then I can work my way to being first class. It is at that level I will be able to take my own car out and be on my own. I think that I can get there in the next three months or so.

After we were done with the book we hit the road. He said I could do what I wanted. So I went out twenty-six. I saw someone walking down the road. I stopped and spoke to the person. They were not doing anything wrong, but I barely could see them due to the darkness. So I tried to talk them into taking a ride with me to someplace to get them off the road. It took a while but I was able to do it. I gave the person a ride to Dusty. But I made a couple mistakes along the way. I didn’t search the bags for weapons as well as I should have. I didn’t get the ID as quickly as I should have. I should have run the person right away rather than waiting to run it after I dropped the person off. Then at Dusty I opened the trunk to let the person get their things but I turned my back and they could have gotten to a weapon case I had in the trunk.

We talked about all those things on the way from the call. I knew about some of my mistakes, but I wasn’t sure about what I was able to do in some other ones, like running the person right away. At the end of the night Zehm said that I really didn’t do bad. He said I did fine, but he still had to put that down on my evaluation. Even though I have a lot of ride time in, I had not dealt with something like that before so I didn’t know all the things I should and could do. This was a great learning experience, because I still went home that night.