Uneventful weekend

Well Saturday started early and we had a land navigation exercise out in the woods. It was once again painfully obvious that I should have a Garmin GPS with me at all times. After that was over we came back to the barracks and loaded up on the shuttle to Ft. Jackson and the PX. In lieu of eating an MRE for lunch I decided to eat at the PX before picking up a few items in the store.



Saturday night was a little slow so five of use went into Columbia for dinner. It took a conscious effort to not gobble my food down like an animal out in public unlike what is usually necessary at meat times here during training. It was a quiet night in the barracks for the most part since most of the guys decided to get hotels and stay out in town.



Waking up on Sunday and being up before 0800 was beyond my comprehension but that's how things were this morning. The internet here is maddening since the Army IRR guys have arrived and the already slow internet has gotten much worse on base. After lunch today (which was pretty awful) I broke down and went to the computer lab just to get a good connection. I managed to finish my class that I've been trying to do for the last three weeks in about 30 minutes; I should have done that two weeks ago I suppose.



I would try to post some new pictures but it is not at all possible under the circumstances. I hope to find out tomorrow more about my upcoming travel. Tonight will probably be an early one for me since I have to be in medical tomorrow morning at 0500 for some more Anthrax which will be a great time for my arm. I'm not even going to pretend to be interested in the Superbowl tonight.

Friday

We had a good day today. Breakfast was optional so I took the option to sleep in since we didn't have to muster until 6:20 this morning. We had some early class instruction time with one of our drill Sergeants who as you would expect is pretty matter of fact which is actually a good thing. We also got our assignments for our convoy next week; it seems that I'm now a gunner. For this job I'll be sticking up out of the top of the humvee having to be observant. I'm not sure why you'd stick someone up there who can barely pay attention when they're driving but that's my assignment so I'll execute it as well as I can for the benefit of my team.... and I get a machine gun to shoot most likely so that's a good thing.

After lectures we loaded up on our buses and headed down to the Electronic range simulators for training for night shooting and other training scenarios. It was pretty interesting and I ended up having a pretty successful day. For the training scenarios I actually received praise for breaking the chain of mishaps from earlier groups by executing my mission and keeping my group from getting blown up; it took putting a bullet in someones head but that was the job at hand and in the scenario it was what was necessary to save my team. The instructor said he had to blow everyone else up that day for not eliminating the threat who had a bomb. I was disappointed not to have more time in the trainer today with those scenarios even though that's probably not what I'll be doing where I'm headed.

We went back to the classroom after the simulator training and lunch outside in the cold and rain for more instruction. We received training on tactics and devices used by the enemy. the excitement tonight was going to the base PX at Fort Jackson with a battle buddy. I got a haircut and had a Philly cheesesteak from Charlie's..... I actually felt like a real person again for a little while. We'll probably head back tomorrow to buy bugout bags to have for good backpacks for traveling while we're on leave overseas. On the planner this weekend is the class I have to finish in the next five days which is hard considering the Internet connections here and some housekeeping that needs to be done in the barracks and maybe the Superbowl party on base here this Sunday; we'll have to see how that goes and if the place is packed or not.

More time shooting..... got pistol qualification today

So the day started at 3:30 for us today. We made it into bed early enough last night but then there was the nightmare that had one of our folks screaming in the middle of the night.... needless to say that disturbed the little bit of sleep we got. We ended up outside at 4:15 for a 4:30 muster and then were rolling by 4:45 to the range for low light pistol shooting. Well, it was freezing this morning and I ended up in the third firing order which meant I was standing outside waiting my turn to shoot. It wasn't bad shooting but the weather was brutal and it was impossible to keep the hands and feet warm. I ended up skipping breakfast and just going to the warming room to try to thaw out.

From there we went to the large weapons area and shot the 50cal and machine guns. That was a good time but again..... cold. Back on to the buses and off to another range to do some reflexive shooting with rifles and then back to the range where we started out the morning. The lunch today was MREs again and mine had cheese tortellini and mashed potatoes; not sure who came up with that combination but I just ate the fig bar out of it. We did some stress shooting after that with the rifle which consisted of getting out of a hummer, no easy task in body armor by the way, and running to a course of various shooting stations while there was some yelling by the Drill Sergeants. That was the end of the training day in full gear for about 11 hours and I was tired after that.

While observing the long cold day one of my shipmates asked me if I would prefer to be at my civilian job which immediately brought things back into perspective. Of course my attitude improved with that thought and the training day was over for the most part. Tomorrow we get to sleep in and don't muster until 6:20 which is a late day!

Successful on rifle qualification today. Tuesday 2/3

I qualified on the rifle today which wasn't mandatory but I still did it. Tomorrow is a large weapon day where we shoot machine guns and the 50cal and hopefull blow something up. I have to get up at a horrible time in the morning,,, probably around 3:30 so I can get ready and muster at 4:15 for a 4:30official muster to head out on buses at 4:45 so we can do low-light pistol qualifications then breakfast outside before some reflexive shooting on rifles and large weapons.
I was so exhausted last night that I got in bed by 9:00 and pretty much passed out with a big flourescent light right over my face and everyone else up and being noisy watching a comedian on the computer and cleaning weapons... I slept hard after wearing body armor around all day long.


Today wasn't so bad and it was not cold like Tuesday. After I finished qith my qualification i piddled around and eventually after lunch decided to lay down in the sun,,,, I think I took a little nap and got some sun on my face. After that we came back and had a basic map reading class until dinner at 6:00. Then back to the barracks to get out of uniform, check email and get a shower just to start over again tomorrow.

Successful on rifle qualification today.

I qualified on the rifle today which wasn't mandatory but I still did it. Tomorrow is a large weapon day where we shoot machine guns and the 50cal and hopefully blow something up. I have to get up at a horrible time in the morning,,, probably around 3:30 so I can get ready and muster at 4:15 for a 4:30official muster to head out on buses at 4:45 so we can do low-light pistol qualifications then breakfast outside before some reflexive shooting on rifles and large weapons.
I was so exhausted last night that I got in bed by 9:00 and pretty much passed out with a big fluorescent light right over my face and everyone else up and being noisy watching a comedian on the computer and cleaning weapons... I slept hard after wearing body armor around all day long.

Today wasn't so bad and it was not cold like Tuesday. After I finished with my qualification i piddled around and eventually after lunch decided to lay down in the sun,,,, I think I took a little nap and got some sun on my face. After that we came back and had a basic map reading class until dinner at 6:00. Then back to the barracks to get out of uniform, check email and get a shower just to start over again tomorrow.

This three weeks makes me a little more appreciative of those who gear up and do this every day as well as those who instruct.

Cold and rainy Tuesday

So today started at 4:15ish rolling out of the rack and getting on all of the gear. We even added the gas mask today for some reason even though we never used the thing. We had a 5:15 muster then off to breakfast and back to the classroom. My battalion was taking a convoy out to the target range instead of the buses.

Well it was starting to drizzle as we loaded up in the humvees; five per vehicle and one of us had to be up in the turret. That was all fine and good and I started out in the back of the vehicle and we alternated positions all the way out. Well all the convoy exercises were fine and I didn't mind driving although the diesel vehicle was no luxury import, but then I made my way out to the turret with my rifle.

The rain was coming down so it felt like needles in my face. Had it been a nice sunny day the ride in the turret would have been ideal but no such luck for me. CDR Hasen (Trish) was driving as we came upon a huge muddy water puddle and she floored it as we approached. Most of the puddle ended up on me and the rest on the windshield to the point they could hardly see out. They were all amused and I was a good sport but not as amused since now I was soaked (and dirty). We did a drive through the course we will convoy next week as a group exercise and then headed toward the range.

Of course everyone had been started or rostered so we were last on the roster. We received some other instruction while waiting and finally we were called. Well the surprise we got was that we were given eight magazines of ammo to do all of our shooting exercises at once. Let me tell you, face down on wet red clay in body armour is not where you want to be. The other groups did four magazines, broke off then came back later. It was nice to get it done all at once but a little tiring and the break would have been nice.

Our battalion was released for the day after that and we came back and tried to clean up or gear as best we could so we can probably mess it up again tomorrow. Gear cleaning was followed by a long hot shower that was supposed to help my old sore back,,,, it didn't help much but at least I was clean again.

Stay tuned for more...

It was a fairly uneventful weekend and got to catch up on a little sleep. Everyone came rolling in on Sunday and it was pretty busy until around 10 at night. We were able to sleep in on Monday morning and did not have to be at breakfast until 7:30 and then off to medical for some follow up stuff and then free until lunch. The afternoon will consist of some first aid and other lectures and tomorrow we have an early day going out to shoot prequalification practice on the M16; cold and rain predicted as well so it'll be good times I'm sure. Wednesday is qualification day on the rifle and Thursday is low light shooting day for the M9.

We found out today tentatively that we should ship out next week to Norfolk and will probably be there for a number of days before heading on over to the next stop. Hopefully there will be some liberty time while in Norfolk to do some visiting.