I'm not sure where to start when describing what it was like to spend 10 days in the Mountains of Dahlonega, GA with nothing more than what I could carry on my back to stay warm, hydrated, and fed. It was a serious effort to stay healthy and perform well enough to get on to the next phase but somehow my entire IBOLC squad that showed up to Mountains made it through with only a few minor skin irritations and numb hands and feet. Speaking of numb fingers...typing is quite difficult when you can't feel your finger tips. The nurses of the family tell me to get some B6 down and in a few days I should have feeling back. It's funny though when you pick up a hot cup of coffee and your sure it should be burning your fingers but you can't quite tell.
The area we were operating in is where the Tennessee Valley Divide meets the start of the Appalachian Trail. You might think of Georgia, it must be warm. No. Any Hokies out there imagine going on a five day hike around Blacksburg in early December. It was rough. Now under normal circumstances I would love to be in this place. Absolutely beautiful, great mountains, reminded me of Blacksburg, and a very secluded portion of the AT. My cup of tea...except in this case I was carrying between 70 and 100 lbs (depending if I was carrying a radio, assistant gunner equipment, or was just a rifleman). And the temps were around 40 and below while raining the first week out, and in the teens and single digits the following week (but luckily dry - aside from the occasional snow dusting). Oh and the instructors dictated the uniform which was never quite enough to stay warm...but they were able to weed out a few guys that were either not tough enough or not dumb enough to drive on. I'm not sure which category I fall into that allowed me to continue.
It never occurred to me before that the muscles you use to climb up and down mountains with a ruck on are the same ones you use to shiver. Not a good combo when all of your water is frozen and you and your buddies are all dehydrated. The common line when we finally were able to bust open MREs at the end of a night (between 1 and 3 am) was "anyone have any usable water??" It was an adventure. Everyone was pushed further than they thought they could ever go in the worst conditions. A buddy of mine lost 45lbs over the past 6 weeks. Little ole me lost 30 and any of you that know me understand that I am not working with much baby fat. My arms are strings, my legs are nothing but tight muscle, and the jeans that I brought as my one civilian outfit fall right off my hips. More than once when it really got to sucking I could feel the prayers coming my way and a mysterious feeling of my grandfathers walking with me that lightened the load just enough to keep climbing. No complaints though. Today I have had 3 solid meals and a half dozen candy bars, 2 shakes at lunch, and I have a BBQ tonight with the fellas. I was tasked with dessert: 3 pies and 24 ice cream snickers bars for 12 guys should do it. Oh and I will be at mom's on Wednesday night for dinner along with the next three weeks before Florida.
Most Ranger classes get on a plane in the Mountains and jump into Florida to start immediately. Not sure how they pull it off. I am lucky and get to put weight back on and get my health together before I face the last hurdle in the quest for the Ranger Tab. I am lucky to be sitting at a computer with slippers on, hot tea, and a full stomach. Looks like I might get by without a recycle and make it to my little sister's wedding (which really is the goal). I'm ready to knock it out and get out to my unit with Ranger school as a memory. I met a lot of great enlisted guys, NCOs, and officers during the first two phases and have been lucky to go through this cauldron of training with some tough joes.
After Darby I don't think I respected the school enough. Now I understand.
Oh and I see the Hokies won the ACC and the Bills have three in the "W" column. Nice. See everyone soon. Party at my folks house Sunday the 19th. It will be a feast.
What is this?
13 December 2010
19 November 2010
Tired, hungry, cold anyone??
First phase of Ranger School is in the books and I passed my patrols, peers, and required events so I will be moving on to the mountain phase starting tomorrow. I am on my 8 hour pass to catch up on calories, laundry, and get a taste of flip flops and civilization. So far it is not as bad as my expectations but don't get me wrong, we are constantly tired, hungry, and cold....and it is just going to get colder at higher elevation.
I had a great squad and most of us pushed on through the phase. A few good guys did not make it and will have to recycle the phase. Sucks. Some of the graded patrols seemed like a crap shoot. We would do everything required but the graders would find something significant that was missed and assess a no go. You must get at least one go on patrols to move on.
The best part is easily the 2 click night movements through the swamp with no illumination from a new moon and only 6 NVDs for a 14 man squad. Thank the good Lord for a spare pair of boots at the end of the movement and a burn barrel to dry wet clothes.
We average an hour or 2 of sleep with the most during patrols being about 4 and the least being about 20 minutes. It's amazing to me how much 20 minutes of shut eye can help your body. No injuries but every time the patrol halts we go to a knee and pull security. Constantly going to a knee with 100lbs of equipment on just wears down the knee and man you get tight. With the heavy weapons equipment on your back you pretty much cramp up everytime you shoot back up to your feet. With the 30 degree nights its tough to drink enough water but you force it down and embrace the cold with a few push ups and throw the sack back up and drive on.
Looking forward to the Mountains. It will be tough but at least we are through the first phase and the Christmas break is only 20 days of training away. I have already lost 15 pounds, but then again I put on 20 prior to the course so I am still a few pounds heavier than I was in September. Skinny arms and I think my chest now caves in, but legs of iron, no gut, and a solid core. The mountains will wear us down but this is Ranger school, not band camp. Can't wait to hit every restaurant in the DC area and Buffalo over the break. Go Hokies - Looking good, glad to see we didn't stumble into the finish. Beat the U and I will have a good Christmas. Let's go Bills! Win one for the Rangers.... Anyone want to send updates on sports please send to:
Ranger Sardo
5th Ranger Training BN
RN# 368, Company C
Camp Frank D. Merrill
Dahlonega, GA 30533
Time for laundry and large cheeseburgers. Peace out.
I had a great squad and most of us pushed on through the phase. A few good guys did not make it and will have to recycle the phase. Sucks. Some of the graded patrols seemed like a crap shoot. We would do everything required but the graders would find something significant that was missed and assess a no go. You must get at least one go on patrols to move on.
The best part is easily the 2 click night movements through the swamp with no illumination from a new moon and only 6 NVDs for a 14 man squad. Thank the good Lord for a spare pair of boots at the end of the movement and a burn barrel to dry wet clothes.
We average an hour or 2 of sleep with the most during patrols being about 4 and the least being about 20 minutes. It's amazing to me how much 20 minutes of shut eye can help your body. No injuries but every time the patrol halts we go to a knee and pull security. Constantly going to a knee with 100lbs of equipment on just wears down the knee and man you get tight. With the heavy weapons equipment on your back you pretty much cramp up everytime you shoot back up to your feet. With the 30 degree nights its tough to drink enough water but you force it down and embrace the cold with a few push ups and throw the sack back up and drive on.
Looking forward to the Mountains. It will be tough but at least we are through the first phase and the Christmas break is only 20 days of training away. I have already lost 15 pounds, but then again I put on 20 prior to the course so I am still a few pounds heavier than I was in September. Skinny arms and I think my chest now caves in, but legs of iron, no gut, and a solid core. The mountains will wear us down but this is Ranger school, not band camp. Can't wait to hit every restaurant in the DC area and Buffalo over the break. Go Hokies - Looking good, glad to see we didn't stumble into the finish. Beat the U and I will have a good Christmas. Let's go Bills! Win one for the Rangers.... Anyone want to send updates on sports please send to:
Ranger Sardo
5th Ranger Training BN
RN# 368, Company C
Camp Frank D. Merrill
Dahlonega, GA 30533
Time for laundry and large cheeseburgers. Peace out.
27 September 2010
Quick update
Alright haven't gotten on here in a while. Busy couple of weeks and heading to the field in an hour until Friday. We are doing a platoon live fire exercise which will last until Wednesday then we are doing platoon level missions for the rest of the week. The live fire should be fun. I was not picked for leadership but unfortunately I was picked up by the PL to be his RTO. Now this means that I had to give up my SAW for a live fire and replace it with a radio. Over/under on rounds I get to put down range in this mission is 2....
Last week was a garrison week and we had Defensive Ops and Counterinsurgency Ops (COIN) classes. We also had our last PT test and the 12 mile ruck. You can not teach a PL enough about COIN. A few power points did not teach me anything I don't know and I got a 100% on the test...don't get excited mom, the Lebanese guy also got a 100. It was a joke. I guess the only way a PL learns about COIN is to read on his own or have a good Battalion Commander.
Week 11 was probably the highlight week of IBOLC. The video posted will give you a pretty funny depiction of the week. Long story short: we were on a night urban mission with the rucks all in the ORP about 300m from the objective, the cadre pulled the ruck guards at the last minute to increase the OPFOR, we used star cluster flares as signals (which works very well at night), one of the star clusters hit the ORP - again 300m away - and incinerated 7 rucks! I do mean incinerated. Once we got there all that was left were piles of ash with a melted E-tool sitting in the middle. Everything gone. The investigation is still underway but heads rolled on this one. Some guys lost drivers licenses, phones, keys, not to mention binos, a spare barrel, and all of their issued gear and uniforms. Thousands of dollars up in smoke. I was one of the lucky ones and I did say a quick prayer.
Ok, enjoy the video below. Thanks to my parents, Aunt MB and Uncle Jim, and Aunt Char and Uncle Frank for the Birthday gifts. You guys are awesome. Mom, you might have overdone the care package, it will take a lot of effort to finish all of that before I go to Ranger.
Back into the woods.
UPDATE: I'm in the computer lab on post and youtube is blocked. I will try to get the video up with my phone. If not it will be up on Friday.
Last week was a garrison week and we had Defensive Ops and Counterinsurgency Ops (COIN) classes. We also had our last PT test and the 12 mile ruck. You can not teach a PL enough about COIN. A few power points did not teach me anything I don't know and I got a 100% on the test...don't get excited mom, the Lebanese guy also got a 100. It was a joke. I guess the only way a PL learns about COIN is to read on his own or have a good Battalion Commander.
Week 11 was probably the highlight week of IBOLC. The video posted will give you a pretty funny depiction of the week. Long story short: we were on a night urban mission with the rucks all in the ORP about 300m from the objective, the cadre pulled the ruck guards at the last minute to increase the OPFOR, we used star cluster flares as signals (which works very well at night), one of the star clusters hit the ORP - again 300m away - and incinerated 7 rucks! I do mean incinerated. Once we got there all that was left were piles of ash with a melted E-tool sitting in the middle. Everything gone. The investigation is still underway but heads rolled on this one. Some guys lost drivers licenses, phones, keys, not to mention binos, a spare barrel, and all of their issued gear and uniforms. Thousands of dollars up in smoke. I was one of the lucky ones and I did say a quick prayer.
Ok, enjoy the video below. Thanks to my parents, Aunt MB and Uncle Jim, and Aunt Char and Uncle Frank for the Birthday gifts. You guys are awesome. Mom, you might have overdone the care package, it will take a lot of effort to finish all of that before I go to Ranger.
Back into the woods.
UPDATE: I'm in the computer lab on post and youtube is blocked. I will try to get the video up with my phone. If not it will be up on Friday.
13 September 2010
This week in IBOLC
I think most of you know that my next training adventure is
Last week was MOUT ops. Military Operations in Urban Terrain is a big part of the mission right now and we train hard on it. Team level room clearing in a four man stack up to a platoon raid on a hotel with say 30+ rooms. That was a blast. My squad had the third floor. We were armed with M4s that had these simulation rounds that were basically plastic beebies. We wore paint ball masks and body armor but when one of those babies hits unprotected skin they usually draw blood. A few of my buddies were showing off their battle scars after the mission. Sounds cool, but I had my SAW and 300 blank rounds. We hit the third floor and start clearing rooms. I am pulling security on the hallway when an opposition force guy pops around the corner. I spray the SAW in his direction but the loud sound with no sim rounds did nothing to the enemy. He stood there and shot at me with his sim rounds. Cool. I am carrying a useless hunk of junk for this exercise that has a great bark but zero bite. I was able to get around the wall and allow my sim round wielding comrades take out the pest. We then make our way around the rest of the floor clearing all of the rooms. Doing good so far until Bravo Team takes a few casualties from a “suicide bomber.” It was a guy with a few fake grenade cases taped to his body. He yells boom, and two of my buddies are now “dead.” Great, now my team has to hit the last 3 rooms on our own. I end of following my buddy into a room and as we enter an OPFOR grabs him. I am right on his tail and instantly clamp down on his neck and pin him up against the wall just to hear a faint “boom” from his gasping throat. Cool, both of us are out for the rest of the mission. Might have seemed a little unfair, but good training. That is what we need to account for out there. I will never understand the suicide bomber, but it is their best weapon.
The highlight of the week was Thursday night when we finished training. We had a
The next morning we did the squad competition ruck march. In the company there are four platoons with 4 squads each. We cross loaded the weapons squads to give each of the rifle squads a gun team (3 guys). So there are twelve teams doing five miles out to pick up a “mystery item” and return to the start with it. We start off at a controlled pace. It’s a long walk and the guys that started off running were smoked by mile 2. We started in the dark so by the time we found ourselves all alone we were not sure if anyone was in front. Our guys did great and as we came down a hill that seemed about
We end up walking another mile and a quarter and see the rest of the company making their way to the turn. At that point the 1SG stops up and explains that there were too many drop outs and the competition had to stop. We were going to link up as a company right there and walk the rest at a controlled pace. Hold on, we are in the lead by a few hundred meters and we are cooking. It didn’t work so we dropped rucks and waited. The next squad rolled in a few minutes later and the company was together after another 25. We had a great lead and would have been finishing breakfast before most of the company finished. We still felt proud of the effort and even better the next two squads that came in were from my platoon. After the last group joined us we rested another couple minutes until the 1SG was ready to lead us the rest of the way. Remember how I said he was mitigating risk and we would walk at a controlled pace? Well I have this great Garmin GPS watch that tells me my pace and the first mile and a half was at a
This week will be a lot of the same. We are doing platoon level missions. Raids, ambushes, and recons. At night we will be in patrol bases praying the guy on the other side doesn’t fall asleep and allow us to get hit by cadre and forced to pack up and move the platoon in the middle of the night. We do break down to limited security to allow some guys to sleep a bit, but that ends up being 90 minutes of sleep for every 30 minutes of gun time. Fun stuff.
01 September 2010
Alright last one...
The Black Uniforms for Monday. Read the description of the idea behind the uniforms. Kind of cool. I think the black helmets are bad ass.Had to put this one up, the Al Pachino speech fits well.
Welcome back Darren Evans, and if the offense didn't have enough speed, Coach Beamer announced David Wilson will not redshirt with the crowded backfield, he will just be another weapon in the arsenal.
Four more days.
Virginia Tech Football 2010-11 Preview
The best part is when Coach Foster goes crazy running down the sideline. I have goose bumps.
Entrance Miami Game 2005
Yes, I have spent the last hour watching highlights from last year and checking out our black uniforms we will be wearing Monday night. I have mentally checked out of IBOLC and can't wait to be around some Hokies this weekend. Tomorrow we just have PT and a test...no biggie. Can't wait to get back into Lane Stadium. And yes I was in the crowd at this one.
24 August 2010
Train, train, train....garrison week!
After five weeks in the field we finally have a week in the classroom. It is great to just have PT, go to class, and end the day at a decent hour. Much different from last week which was spent entirely in the field sweating. We actually have this week and the next in garrison leading right up to the four day holiday for Labor Day. It may seem like your tax dollars are not being well spent at the moment, but trust me, it is well deserved - and we are still working hard.
Last week was a smoker, and we didn't get released on Friday night until after 10pm, but it was fun (as you can see from the video I posted of the I-BOLC, I-BULLETIN). The week was all squad level missions and culminated with a squad live fire exercise. I am lucky and have a solid squad, so not only did our blank fire missions go well, but no one got shot in our live fire as we unloaded countless amounts of ammo into pop-up targets.
Monday was all walk through of different battle drills. The Infantry has set drills to respond to different situations. Each member of the squad knows his role and very little communication needs to take place to run the drill. The catch is that in order to become good at your battle drills as a team you have to rehearse, and rehearse, and rehearse. That was Monday. All walk through. We did react to contact, react to an ambush, take out a bunker, and take out a trench. By Tuesday we were running through each drill with blanks. I am a SAW gunner and on the assault team. This means I get to run quite a bit with a pretty heavy weapon and more than necessary extra ammo. By the end of the week I was smoked, but I would not want any other weapon in the squad this week.
Wednesday we started patrol base operations. Sort of the Infantry's method of setting up a temporary camp to rest, regroup, or run missions. During the day each squad ran two missions each and would return to the patrol base with the rest of the platoon. At night we set up another patrol base and ran night missions for each squad with NVGs. It was good stuff. The last mission ended around 2am and we had to maintain security throughout the rest of the night or face the wrath of the dreaded "arty sims" (artillery simulator - basically a flash bang grenade with a whistle fuse to simulate an incoming mortar round). The sound of the arty sim at any hour of the night means we have to wake up, get our stuff together, and regroup at one of two predesignated rally points. The deal was that the cadre would only throw one if someone was sleeping on a guard shift. I had my shift from 0315-0400. As you can imagine there was not much sleeping that night. I was able to stay awake and woke up the next in line. Without removing my boots or any clothing in finally laid down to hopefully get an hour or so more sleep. As soon as my eyes were shut I heard the slam of the cadre truck door that was parked around the corner. Great. As soon as I am done with my shift the are going to mess with us. Good thing I didn't unpack my ruck because a minute later I heard the whistle of an arty sim and sounded off with the standard "incoming." Sure enough we packed all of our stuff up and moved to the rally point where the entire platoon sat like zombies, some trying to figure out where they were. The best part was the platoon leadership attempting to get accountability of everyone in the dark in a ravine. I think they called this one guys name for 15 minutes and no one knew where he was. He was presumed lost in the woods somewhere and we were getting ready to send guys to look for him when someone realized he was right in the middle of us. Claimed he wasn't sleeping, but I think that is still up in the air.
That night finally ended and we returned around daylight to the FOB the company was based out of for the week. Hot breakfast was great, but they seem to be forgetting the butter every time we have hot breakfast. We started to morning, again running on barely 2 hrs sleep, with a 2 km march with rucks out to a trench to discuss a platoon level assault. Our platoon trainer talked us through the class and as he told us to get our rucks back on to walk back he asked us if we knew how to react to indirect fire -uh oh more arty sims.... We started walking back but thank god my buddy was getting curious about how the SAW felt and wanted to carry it back. "Ha, sure man have at it, oh and here is the spare ammo." Just my luck though, once we started walking the arty sim made an appearance and one of the guys who didn't hit the dirt quite fast enough was pronounced dead. So now we have all of our equipment and a click and a half to carry a dead guy. Of course his squad mates were high tailing it out of there as they were supposed to when we are being hit by indirect fire. Since my squad made up the rear we were the only ones left to respond to the casualty. Ok, no litter, no sked, guy is about 195, and we have to take his ruck...and oh yea, we better run! Good thing I was carrying an M4 at the time because I was apparently the perfect option to carry the guy. I gave my ruck and weapon to a buddy and threw the casualty on my back. His kit was still on and the mags digging into my back as I ran with him felt fantastic. Did I say he was 195, I think he was more like 215, and did I say 1.5km, must have been at least 3. I carried him most of the way until we caught up with the rest of the platoon. At that point I was graciously relived of the duty by a buddy and did the final few hundred meters at a very painful, and very slow trot. What a way to start the morning.
The rest of the day we were given time to rehearse for the squad live fire the next day. It was a good break and we took it pretty easy. We cleaned weapons and rested our legs. The next day is best described by the video below so I won't get too into it, all I can say is that my favorite part of the week was right in line with the consensus of my squad's. After a week sweating on top of dried sweat its the little things that boost morale.
As I said this week is all classroom stuff. Troop leading procedures, operations orders, blah blah, exam Friday, presentations on Monday - what am I back in school? It's not so bad and a good change of pace to let us catch our breath. The training is fast paced and it is nice to have the energy to work out in the evening.
This morning we did our first RPFT (Ranger Physical Fitness Test). 2 minutes of push ups and sit ups (just need to pass), max pull ups (need 6), and a five mile run under 40 minutes. Of course the hill nicknamed "cardiac hill" came right around the 4 mile mark. The run was a smoker but I finished faster than I hoped and didn't puke as I crossed the finish line (but I was close).
The rest of the week is just PT and classroom. Look forward to getting out of Georgia next Thursday. Talked to Erin today and she said it was in the 70s back home. Sounds great, hope the cold front can last another week.
Last week was a smoker, and we didn't get released on Friday night until after 10pm, but it was fun (as you can see from the video I posted of the I-BOLC, I-BULLETIN). The week was all squad level missions and culminated with a squad live fire exercise. I am lucky and have a solid squad, so not only did our blank fire missions go well, but no one got shot in our live fire as we unloaded countless amounts of ammo into pop-up targets.
Monday was all walk through of different battle drills. The Infantry has set drills to respond to different situations. Each member of the squad knows his role and very little communication needs to take place to run the drill. The catch is that in order to become good at your battle drills as a team you have to rehearse, and rehearse, and rehearse. That was Monday. All walk through. We did react to contact, react to an ambush, take out a bunker, and take out a trench. By Tuesday we were running through each drill with blanks. I am a SAW gunner and on the assault team. This means I get to run quite a bit with a pretty heavy weapon and more than necessary extra ammo. By the end of the week I was smoked, but I would not want any other weapon in the squad this week.
Wednesday we started patrol base operations. Sort of the Infantry's method of setting up a temporary camp to rest, regroup, or run missions. During the day each squad ran two missions each and would return to the patrol base with the rest of the platoon. At night we set up another patrol base and ran night missions for each squad with NVGs. It was good stuff. The last mission ended around 2am and we had to maintain security throughout the rest of the night or face the wrath of the dreaded "arty sims" (artillery simulator - basically a flash bang grenade with a whistle fuse to simulate an incoming mortar round). The sound of the arty sim at any hour of the night means we have to wake up, get our stuff together, and regroup at one of two predesignated rally points. The deal was that the cadre would only throw one if someone was sleeping on a guard shift. I had my shift from 0315-0400. As you can imagine there was not much sleeping that night. I was able to stay awake and woke up the next in line. Without removing my boots or any clothing in finally laid down to hopefully get an hour or so more sleep. As soon as my eyes were shut I heard the slam of the cadre truck door that was parked around the corner. Great. As soon as I am done with my shift the are going to mess with us. Good thing I didn't unpack my ruck because a minute later I heard the whistle of an arty sim and sounded off with the standard "incoming." Sure enough we packed all of our stuff up and moved to the rally point where the entire platoon sat like zombies, some trying to figure out where they were. The best part was the platoon leadership attempting to get accountability of everyone in the dark in a ravine. I think they called this one guys name for 15 minutes and no one knew where he was. He was presumed lost in the woods somewhere and we were getting ready to send guys to look for him when someone realized he was right in the middle of us. Claimed he wasn't sleeping, but I think that is still up in the air.
That night finally ended and we returned around daylight to the FOB the company was based out of for the week. Hot breakfast was great, but they seem to be forgetting the butter every time we have hot breakfast. We started to morning, again running on barely 2 hrs sleep, with a 2 km march with rucks out to a trench to discuss a platoon level assault. Our platoon trainer talked us through the class and as he told us to get our rucks back on to walk back he asked us if we knew how to react to indirect fire -uh oh more arty sims.... We started walking back but thank god my buddy was getting curious about how the SAW felt and wanted to carry it back. "Ha, sure man have at it, oh and here is the spare ammo." Just my luck though, once we started walking the arty sim made an appearance and one of the guys who didn't hit the dirt quite fast enough was pronounced dead. So now we have all of our equipment and a click and a half to carry a dead guy. Of course his squad mates were high tailing it out of there as they were supposed to when we are being hit by indirect fire. Since my squad made up the rear we were the only ones left to respond to the casualty. Ok, no litter, no sked, guy is about 195, and we have to take his ruck...and oh yea, we better run! Good thing I was carrying an M4 at the time because I was apparently the perfect option to carry the guy. I gave my ruck and weapon to a buddy and threw the casualty on my back. His kit was still on and the mags digging into my back as I ran with him felt fantastic. Did I say he was 195, I think he was more like 215, and did I say 1.5km, must have been at least 3. I carried him most of the way until we caught up with the rest of the platoon. At that point I was graciously relived of the duty by a buddy and did the final few hundred meters at a very painful, and very slow trot. What a way to start the morning.
The rest of the day we were given time to rehearse for the squad live fire the next day. It was a good break and we took it pretty easy. We cleaned weapons and rested our legs. The next day is best described by the video below so I won't get too into it, all I can say is that my favorite part of the week was right in line with the consensus of my squad's. After a week sweating on top of dried sweat its the little things that boost morale.
As I said this week is all classroom stuff. Troop leading procedures, operations orders, blah blah, exam Friday, presentations on Monday - what am I back in school? It's not so bad and a good change of pace to let us catch our breath. The training is fast paced and it is nice to have the energy to work out in the evening.
This morning we did our first RPFT (Ranger Physical Fitness Test). 2 minutes of push ups and sit ups (just need to pass), max pull ups (need 6), and a five mile run under 40 minutes. Of course the hill nicknamed "cardiac hill" came right around the 4 mile mark. The run was a smoker but I finished faster than I hoped and didn't puke as I crossed the finish line (but I was close).
The rest of the week is just PT and classroom. Look forward to getting out of Georgia next Thursday. Talked to Erin today and she said it was in the 70s back home. Sounds great, hope the cold front can last another week.
21 August 2010
It's A Simple Answer After All
My buddy showed me this speech while we were out in the field this week. We had our whole squad listen to it right before we went out to do our squad live fire exercise to pump everyone up. The best comment after the speech was from our Jamaican brother who said he wished he was in the US Army after listening to the speech. Great motivational speech that still applies today. "It's a simple answer after all" has become a rallying cry for my squad during the tough times during training. Hooah.
16 August 2010
I guess I should tell you what we are up to down here
Last week was all automatic weapons. It was a testosterone filled thrill week that of course was appropriately ended with the release of the top guy flick of the new decade staring a list of juiced up old guys (no I did not see The Expendables this weekend, but i may dish out the money to see it on the big screen just for a kick). But really, we fired the M2 .50 CAL, the MK 19 (Mark 19), 240B, and the 249 (SAW). I carry a SAW (squad automatic weapon). It is fun to fire but a pain in the ass to get on the bus along with my ruck and kit.
This video above was taken and put together by a buddy of mine Bill from Wisconsin. Before seeking a commission in the Infantry from the Wisconsin Guard he was a TV reporter. We have been bugging him to give us a taste of his talent and he finally put together a masterpiece. Hope there is more of this to follow, and if there is I will be sure to share.
The training on the MK 19 and 50 were basically just familiarization, but when you sit behind an automatic grenade launcher and hit a beat up tank from about a mile out it makes me think of my friends surfing the net in a cube, and I laugh.
The 240B shoots a 7.62 round which is also the AK round. It is a beast. It can put about a million rounds down range in a minute when you hold the trigger, cyclic fire, and it is organic to the light infantry platoon. It will be my most important weapon outside of artillery and close air support. We had a good time doing day and night fire. We also did day and night on the SAW. I had a chance to qualify with the weapon since it is mine for the rest of our training. The SAW fires a 5.56 round, same as the M4, and it is also a thrill to fire (even if it feels like a toy gun after the 240B).
The week led up to a weapons squad live fire exercise. We rehearsed whenever we had down time and the drill went like this: The squad has two 240B teams made up of a gunner, an Assistant Gunner (AG), an Ammo Bearer (AB), a weapon, tripod, spare barrel, and 800 rounds. It also has two SAW teams made up of a gunner, AG, a weapon, spare barrel, and 600 rounds. A squad leader controls the whole element and brings them all online in a specific order, places the 240B's on tripod in a tactical manner, and controls fire to 1) put a shit ton of rounds down range initially, 2) control ammo but switching the element to sustained fire - means one gun at a time - talking guns, 3) shifts and lifts fire to allow friendlies to assault the objective. He then tactically withdraws the squad. Sounds like fun eh?
So we spent the week preping for the live fire. I had a SAW with a 200 round drum, my AG carried 400 rounds and the spare barrel. With that many rounds in a short period of time it is essential to change the barrel out to prevent it from warping from the intense heat. I was pretty pumped for our turn, I cleaned and oiled my weapon the night before and during the day while we waited around. We finally got our turn! I got online with my AG, 200 rounds loaded, and waited for the signal. The SL yelled for us to go to rapid fire (200rnds/minute). YES, here we go! I pulled and held the trigger....'click'. WTF. Charged the weapon, pulled....'click'. NO. Performed a standard malfunctions check, reloaded, pulled, got three rounds out before - 'click.' I must have performed 5 malfunctions checks in 20 seconds, charged the handle 2 dozen times and nothing, my weapon was down. Our NCO noticed right away and walked over to watch what I was doing. He was at a loss and eventually told me to give it a rest, it was a crappy weapon. DAMN. All of that anticipation just to hear a click. I could have thrown the piece of crap all the way down range. (We get our weapons from a circulation here at Ft. Benning so they are old, used up, and not well maintained) The rest of the squad was lighting up the range, we ended up passing off about 590 rounds to the other SAW, and he didn't hesitate to load them up. Even with three or four barrel changes by the time he had fired well over a thousand rounds his weapon was so hot it began to "cook off" rounds. This means that the heat is just firing rounds out of the barrel without pulling the trigger. The drill here is to maintain control of the weapon and try to break the links in the belt feeding the beast. He did it and him and his AG were good to go (although I think they both blessed themselves as we withdrew).
All in all a pretty fun week. This week we are doing a squad live fire battle drill. Should be fun. A lot of prep before we actually get to go live, but that's just the way these things work. I made sure to dissect my weapon and give it a proper cleaning. Hopefully I will not have the same problems this week.
My only complaint so far is the inability to maintain a proper PT schedule. We have good PT when we are doing classes here, but once we get into the field (which is most of the week) we can't go to the gym. All that this leads to is heavy workouts on the weekends and Mondays, so yes I am pretty beat right now after a run this morning, lifting this afternoon, and a few miles under the ruck tonight...at least I get to rest in the woods. They are calling for a good week of rain and we are going out tomorrow until Friday night. Good thing I have two ponchos.
This video above was taken and put together by a buddy of mine Bill from Wisconsin. Before seeking a commission in the Infantry from the Wisconsin Guard he was a TV reporter. We have been bugging him to give us a taste of his talent and he finally put together a masterpiece. Hope there is more of this to follow, and if there is I will be sure to share.
The training on the MK 19 and 50 were basically just familiarization, but when you sit behind an automatic grenade launcher and hit a beat up tank from about a mile out it makes me think of my friends surfing the net in a cube, and I laugh.
The 240B shoots a 7.62 round which is also the AK round. It is a beast. It can put about a million rounds down range in a minute when you hold the trigger, cyclic fire, and it is organic to the light infantry platoon. It will be my most important weapon outside of artillery and close air support. We had a good time doing day and night fire. We also did day and night on the SAW. I had a chance to qualify with the weapon since it is mine for the rest of our training. The SAW fires a 5.56 round, same as the M4, and it is also a thrill to fire (even if it feels like a toy gun after the 240B).
The week led up to a weapons squad live fire exercise. We rehearsed whenever we had down time and the drill went like this: The squad has two 240B teams made up of a gunner, an Assistant Gunner (AG), an Ammo Bearer (AB), a weapon, tripod, spare barrel, and 800 rounds. It also has two SAW teams made up of a gunner, AG, a weapon, spare barrel, and 600 rounds. A squad leader controls the whole element and brings them all online in a specific order, places the 240B's on tripod in a tactical manner, and controls fire to 1) put a shit ton of rounds down range initially, 2) control ammo but switching the element to sustained fire - means one gun at a time - talking guns, 3) shifts and lifts fire to allow friendlies to assault the objective. He then tactically withdraws the squad. Sounds like fun eh?
So we spent the week preping for the live fire. I had a SAW with a 200 round drum, my AG carried 400 rounds and the spare barrel. With that many rounds in a short period of time it is essential to change the barrel out to prevent it from warping from the intense heat. I was pretty pumped for our turn, I cleaned and oiled my weapon the night before and during the day while we waited around. We finally got our turn! I got online with my AG, 200 rounds loaded, and waited for the signal. The SL yelled for us to go to rapid fire (200rnds/minute). YES, here we go! I pulled and held the trigger....'click'. WTF. Charged the weapon, pulled....'click'. NO. Performed a standard malfunctions check, reloaded, pulled, got three rounds out before - 'click.' I must have performed 5 malfunctions checks in 20 seconds, charged the handle 2 dozen times and nothing, my weapon was down. Our NCO noticed right away and walked over to watch what I was doing. He was at a loss and eventually told me to give it a rest, it was a crappy weapon. DAMN. All of that anticipation just to hear a click. I could have thrown the piece of crap all the way down range. (We get our weapons from a circulation here at Ft. Benning so they are old, used up, and not well maintained) The rest of the squad was lighting up the range, we ended up passing off about 590 rounds to the other SAW, and he didn't hesitate to load them up. Even with three or four barrel changes by the time he had fired well over a thousand rounds his weapon was so hot it began to "cook off" rounds. This means that the heat is just firing rounds out of the barrel without pulling the trigger. The drill here is to maintain control of the weapon and try to break the links in the belt feeding the beast. He did it and him and his AG were good to go (although I think they both blessed themselves as we withdrew).
All in all a pretty fun week. This week we are doing a squad live fire battle drill. Should be fun. A lot of prep before we actually get to go live, but that's just the way these things work. I made sure to dissect my weapon and give it a proper cleaning. Hopefully I will not have the same problems this week.
My only complaint so far is the inability to maintain a proper PT schedule. We have good PT when we are doing classes here, but once we get into the field (which is most of the week) we can't go to the gym. All that this leads to is heavy workouts on the weekends and Mondays, so yes I am pretty beat right now after a run this morning, lifting this afternoon, and a few miles under the ruck tonight...at least I get to rest in the woods. They are calling for a good week of rain and we are going out tomorrow until Friday night. Good thing I have two ponchos.
Are the Bills going to win this year?
I know it is early and it is just the preseason, but the first glimpse at the 2010 Buffalo Bills was not promising. Even worse we got pounded by the stinkin' Deadskins....who is this new QB they acquired and are the Wizards looking for a new guard (I hear he can play some ball). My buddies from back home and even a few DCists down here didn't hesitate to text me during the game with a laugh.
Oh yea, Fred Jackson and Marshawn Lynch left with injuries and sounds like Jackson is out for at least the rest of the preseason. And if it couldn't get worse for the Bills Aaron Schobel is retiring. Great.
The surest sign of a painful season came a few months ago when I heard that my cousin Mike, maybe the most loyal Bills fan I know and a season ticket holder since before he could actual afford them, decided not to renew his tickets in order to avoid the misery.
08 August 2010
Land Nav week
This week we did our land nav training and test. It was a lot of time walking in the woods and even more time lying on my back trying to kill time. Most of our training, as well as the test, started at 0400 in the morning so we would have a few hours of darkness and a few hours of daylight. Once we were done it was just eat, sleep, eat again, bull shit around, eat, sleep. Seriously, Wednesday I was done with my lane at 0730 and did nothing but sit around until 0400 the next morning. The hard part was staying sane while your boots dried out and the heat sucked out all motivation to read or workout.
Monday we had about the most vague land nav class I have received in the Army. It was a bad class, however, to the credit of the course - if you don't know how to find points in the woods with a compass and map you have no business being here in the first place. We then took the bus out to an actual course near the Ranger Bat training area. Around 2 in the afternoon we did a squad walk-through with cadre to find points and figure out who was weak at land nav. The problem with starting at 2 is that the standard 4 quarts of water we carry with us will last about 90 minutes in the heat we enjoy. So after finding a few points the squad was running low on water and it was in the 100s. Some of the guys were looking rough, even the E-6 out with us was in bad shape at that point and we were about 3km out from the water point. We decided to head back and refit before heading to that last few points. By the time we made it back everyone was in bad shape and we just sat and drank water for a good 10 minutes. Right when we were getting ready to go back out the call came in that a thunderstorm with 50mph + winds was heading our way so we were going to stay put and sit under hooches until it passed. Cool. Don't have to wander around with these guys anymore, I will build a solid hooch and chill. So we got full accountability of the platoon and I started on my poncho hooch. Now if there is one skill I learned in ROTC from our FTXs it is how to build a hooch that will keep me and my gear dry during a storm. I think every FTX we did was in the rain. I built a tight hooch and even had time to dig a trench around it to funnel the water away. I felt confident I would stay dry. This whole time my buddies in my squad are just sitting around laughing at me and planning to just throw their ponchos on their backs and sit on their rucks during the storm. Now I would have done the same thing but my newly acquired cool-guy phone was showing me a big red blob right over our heads so I didn't want to take any chances. We made fun of the rain god, as is the tradition every time an impending rain storm is about to soak us with 3 nights left in the field, but it never rained...I guess it was since I was so prepared. Whatever, we stayed dry for now.
The next morning we were up at 0300 and on the course by 0400. Since it was still training we went out in buddy groups. All of the ISTDs (international students) had to go with two Americans just to make sure they were learning the stuff. We did this Tuesday on this course and Wednesday morning on the harder course that we were testing on Thursday morning. My Jamaican buddy came with me and another guy and it turned out that he was a stud. In the three courses we did Tuesday and Wednesday I found a grand total of zero points! I did the plotting and planning, but every time we got to within 100m of a point Usain Bolt would take off and before we even got close we would here a "hey guys it's right here." It turned out that part of his basic training in Jamaica was a 36 hour fire team (4 guys) 90 mile + land nav course in the jungle. Ok now that is what we do for our SF selection program. The Jamaicans are studs.
Wednesday morning we went out to the course we were testing on and it was a pretty tough course. Very thick bush everywhere. The last company that tested on this course had 120 failures out of 160. They did have to find 7 out of 9 points and our test was reduced to 5 of 7 since it was "so tough." I ended up testing on a pretty easy lane and 2 of the points I tested on I had been to on Wednesday so I found all 7. Oh and the whole majoring in Geography thing has me pretty strong at land nav.
One of the precautions that was taken for the ISTDs was that they would have to go out with an American student. Now the Lebanese guys that are constantly talking on their cell phones and smoking did need help, but some of these international guys are more squared away than the weirdos from Georgetown. I was the squad leader for the week and I had to figure out who our ISTD would go out with. I looked at my squad and everyone was pretty squared away except one guy who wasn't very confident. So being the great leader that I am, I asked Usain Bolt if he would go with the guy that was struggling and make sure he passed. Great move, everyone agreed, it was like we were cheating the system. Turned out they got a really tough lane and did not pass. They had to retest Saturday morning. Yikes, I was ready for a beat down from my Jamaican buddy, but he was cool about it and only blamed himself. If he was by himself he would have run much more and would have been fine. He did talk to the commander after he found out he failed and was given permission to go out by himself on Saturday morning. Both guys ended up passing the retest. Robinson found all 7...phew.
After the test on Thursday morning we went back to civilization and were released by 1245. Took a nap after lunch which was great. Friday was PT and a class with a former Fire Support Officer on call for fire and Field Artillery assets. It was tough to find a guy awake after the week we had, but eventually it ended and we were released for the week.
The rumor mill says two guys from 4th platoon got DUIs Friday night. Really stupid. It is too easy to get a cab around here and there goes their careers. We will probably find out all about it tomorrow morning. I did see The Other Guys on Saturday. Hilarious. Marky Mark is a funny guy and Will Ferrel gets into character really well. It seemed like a better pick than Dinner for Shmucks but if anyone has seen it let me know. I also saw a movie called Restrepo. It's a National Geographic documentary following the 173rd Infantry in the Korengal Valley. Really great movie for anyone that wants to see what some of the roughest parts of Afghanistan look like. It will give you a good picture of the awesomeness of our soldiers and the difficulty of the mission we have given them. Tough to find a theater playing it, but I'm sure the DC area has a few venues. Everyone should go see it except my mother and older sister. Love you two, don't watch it.
I should be back in the DC area the Friday before Labor Day. Still really pissed the Boise State game is on Monday night, but I will be back here in front of the tube for it.
The next morning we were up at 0300 and on the course by 0400. Since it was still training we went out in buddy groups. All of the ISTDs (international students) had to go with two Americans just to make sure they were learning the stuff. We did this Tuesday on this course and Wednesday morning on the harder course that we were testing on Thursday morning. My Jamaican buddy came with me and another guy and it turned out that he was a stud. In the three courses we did Tuesday and Wednesday I found a grand total of zero points! I did the plotting and planning, but every time we got to within 100m of a point Usain Bolt would take off and before we even got close we would here a "hey guys it's right here." It turned out that part of his basic training in Jamaica was a 36 hour fire team (4 guys) 90 mile + land nav course in the jungle. Ok now that is what we do for our SF selection program. The Jamaicans are studs.
Wednesday morning we went out to the course we were testing on and it was a pretty tough course. Very thick bush everywhere. The last company that tested on this course had 120 failures out of 160. They did have to find 7 out of 9 points and our test was reduced to 5 of 7 since it was "so tough." I ended up testing on a pretty easy lane and 2 of the points I tested on I had been to on Wednesday so I found all 7. Oh and the whole majoring in Geography thing has me pretty strong at land nav.
One of the precautions that was taken for the ISTDs was that they would have to go out with an American student. Now the Lebanese guys that are constantly talking on their cell phones and smoking did need help, but some of these international guys are more squared away than the weirdos from Georgetown. I was the squad leader for the week and I had to figure out who our ISTD would go out with. I looked at my squad and everyone was pretty squared away except one guy who wasn't very confident. So being the great leader that I am, I asked Usain Bolt if he would go with the guy that was struggling and make sure he passed. Great move, everyone agreed, it was like we were cheating the system. Turned out they got a really tough lane and did not pass. They had to retest Saturday morning. Yikes, I was ready for a beat down from my Jamaican buddy, but he was cool about it and only blamed himself. If he was by himself he would have run much more and would have been fine. He did talk to the commander after he found out he failed and was given permission to go out by himself on Saturday morning. Both guys ended up passing the retest. Robinson found all 7...phew.
After the test on Thursday morning we went back to civilization and were released by 1245. Took a nap after lunch which was great. Friday was PT and a class with a former Fire Support Officer on call for fire and Field Artillery assets. It was tough to find a guy awake after the week we had, but eventually it ended and we were released for the week.
The rumor mill says two guys from 4th platoon got DUIs Friday night. Really stupid. It is too easy to get a cab around here and there goes their careers. We will probably find out all about it tomorrow morning. I did see The Other Guys on Saturday. Hilarious. Marky Mark is a funny guy and Will Ferrel gets into character really well. It seemed like a better pick than Dinner for Shmucks but if anyone has seen it let me know. I also saw a movie called Restrepo. It's a National Geographic documentary following the 173rd Infantry in the Korengal Valley. Really great movie for anyone that wants to see what some of the roughest parts of Afghanistan look like. It will give you a good picture of the awesomeness of our soldiers and the difficulty of the mission we have given them. Tough to find a theater playing it, but I'm sure the DC area has a few venues. Everyone should go see it except my mother and older sister. Love you two, don't watch it.
I should be back in the DC area the Friday before Labor Day. Still really pissed the Boise State game is on Monday night, but I will be back here in front of the tube for it.
30 July 2010
Another week down - haven't melted yet
This week was advanced marksmanship. We spent Tuesday through Thursday at ranges and slept in the woods. It's tough to get your body temperature down even after the sun sets, but spending the day in the heat takes enough out of you that you just sleep while sweating. They pour ice in the water trailers so it is frigid water. Each time I went to fill my canteens I would stick my head under the water for a few seconds and it was glorious. Other than the heat it was a cool week. We got paid to do what guy pay a lot of money to do, no complaints.
Tuesday was moving targets and close quarters marksmanship (CQM). The moving targets range was cool and we did it twice. My squad had bets going based on team average and my team lost twice, so we owe a two six packs to each guy on the winning team. I will pay up at least one of them tonight. The CQM range involved paper targets from 25-10m away and we would engage them while standing. It was cool and the key was to get two rounds on the target as quick as possible. That night we did the same thing but with night vision and a few tracer rounds mixed in the mags. The PEQ 15s I described last week shoot a laser that you can see with the NODs on and as long as your laser is zeroed you can basically shoot from the hip when your dot is on the target. Cool stuff. The best part was about halfway through my lane when off in the distance there is a green glow. The sun had been long set and we realized pretty quick that one of the tracers caught the woods on fire. The left eye is naked during all of this and I couldn't see a fire at the time. The glowing kept getting brighter and by the time we were done with the lane a tree was pretty much blazing. The cadre went and put it out but it was useless since we were the first iteration and fires kept popping up throughout the night.
The next day we did individual movement lanes. You would engage paper targets from different positions behind walls with two mags. It was cool because you had to change mags quick and move tactically between cover. The only drawback to all of these range days is that for the 10 minutes that you are actually on the lane you have hours just sitting around cleaning your weapon.
Thursday we did a fire team live fire exercise. It was a smoker with all of the equipment we carry and the heat, but pretty cool leading a team of 4 down a 200m lane with 3 X 30 round mags to expend. You start walking together and about 50m away a target pops up. You instantly return fire and everyone gets to cover. Then you move as buddy teams one at a time from cover to cover. Left side moves while right side puts rounds down range, and it continues at about 15m movements. If you can't reach the next cover in 5 seconds you drop quick and crawl to the cover. It was 105 in the shade and brutal in the sun that day. We wore 40lbs vests, helmet, gloves, sunglasses, and our 90 round kit with canteens. Doing short sprints and crawls while trying to maintain control of my team and put rounds on the targets was nuts. At least the pop ups didn't shoot back.
The week ended with weapons cleaning and a safety brief from the commander. Big thing I guess is don't drink if you are on a boat fishing, and stay away from the women in Columbus. I missed the brief but he made one of the guys who was with a guy that got into a fight the weekend prior get up and basically talk about what not to do on the weekends. He's a big guy and a total clown. He cracks us up all the time, but as the CO closes the brief and he yells "boats and ho's!" the entire company cracked up. He's brave. The CO apparently was not happy, but I'm sure he laughed about it later....Then we heard the best thing a soldier wants to hear at the end of a long week right when he thinks he is on his way to the pool: "100% urinalysis." Great so there is 2 hours added on to the end of the day. It actually went pretty quick until this one kid just couldn't get himself going. I guess he had stage fright or something but he tried a few times before all 160 guys were finished. Then we all waited for another 45 minutes for this one kid to get 50mL out. I would not want to be the guy that held up the entire company because he couldn't go, but hey we are doing peer evaluations this weekend due on Monday so he will get what he deserves.
That's about it from this week. Oh I now own a cool guy phone. An HTC Incredible. I was able to check email and news all week in the middle of the woods which was great, and we cleaned our weapons listening to CCR and Petty. Good tunes make any mundane task a little more enjoyable.
UPDATE: So the whole Wikileaks thing. Did you hear about the guy who actually leaked the documents from the Army database? Apparently he was a soldier in Iraq who came across the docs and passed them on to a source over the internet. They caught him because his screen name was BRADASS87 and it was on his correspondence with that asshole Assange. So the Army with its sophisticated intel technology narrowed down all of the Brad's that are military intelligence soldiers and were born in 1987. Bingo, too easy, in jail. What a ninja you are Brad Manning.
Tuesday was moving targets and close quarters marksmanship (CQM). The moving targets range was cool and we did it twice. My squad had bets going based on team average and my team lost twice, so we owe a two six packs to each guy on the winning team. I will pay up at least one of them tonight. The CQM range involved paper targets from 25-10m away and we would engage them while standing. It was cool and the key was to get two rounds on the target as quick as possible. That night we did the same thing but with night vision and a few tracer rounds mixed in the mags. The PEQ 15s I described last week shoot a laser that you can see with the NODs on and as long as your laser is zeroed you can basically shoot from the hip when your dot is on the target. Cool stuff. The best part was about halfway through my lane when off in the distance there is a green glow. The sun had been long set and we realized pretty quick that one of the tracers caught the woods on fire. The left eye is naked during all of this and I couldn't see a fire at the time. The glowing kept getting brighter and by the time we were done with the lane a tree was pretty much blazing. The cadre went and put it out but it was useless since we were the first iteration and fires kept popping up throughout the night.
The next day we did individual movement lanes. You would engage paper targets from different positions behind walls with two mags. It was cool because you had to change mags quick and move tactically between cover. The only drawback to all of these range days is that for the 10 minutes that you are actually on the lane you have hours just sitting around cleaning your weapon.
Thursday we did a fire team live fire exercise. It was a smoker with all of the equipment we carry and the heat, but pretty cool leading a team of 4 down a 200m lane with 3 X 30 round mags to expend. You start walking together and about 50m away a target pops up. You instantly return fire and everyone gets to cover. Then you move as buddy teams one at a time from cover to cover. Left side moves while right side puts rounds down range, and it continues at about 15m movements. If you can't reach the next cover in 5 seconds you drop quick and crawl to the cover. It was 105 in the shade and brutal in the sun that day. We wore 40lbs vests, helmet, gloves, sunglasses, and our 90 round kit with canteens. Doing short sprints and crawls while trying to maintain control of my team and put rounds on the targets was nuts. At least the pop ups didn't shoot back.
The week ended with weapons cleaning and a safety brief from the commander. Big thing I guess is don't drink if you are on a boat fishing, and stay away from the women in Columbus. I missed the brief but he made one of the guys who was with a guy that got into a fight the weekend prior get up and basically talk about what not to do on the weekends. He's a big guy and a total clown. He cracks us up all the time, but as the CO closes the brief and he yells "boats and ho's!" the entire company cracked up. He's brave. The CO apparently was not happy, but I'm sure he laughed about it later....Then we heard the best thing a soldier wants to hear at the end of a long week right when he thinks he is on his way to the pool: "100% urinalysis." Great so there is 2 hours added on to the end of the day. It actually went pretty quick until this one kid just couldn't get himself going. I guess he had stage fright or something but he tried a few times before all 160 guys were finished. Then we all waited for another 45 minutes for this one kid to get 50mL out. I would not want to be the guy that held up the entire company because he couldn't go, but hey we are doing peer evaluations this weekend due on Monday so he will get what he deserves.
That's about it from this week. Oh I now own a cool guy phone. An HTC Incredible. I was able to check email and news all week in the middle of the woods which was great, and we cleaned our weapons listening to CCR and Petty. Good tunes make any mundane task a little more enjoyable.
UPDATE: So the whole Wikileaks thing. Did you hear about the guy who actually leaked the documents from the Army database? Apparently he was a soldier in Iraq who came across the docs and passed them on to a source over the internet. They caught him because his screen name was BRADASS87 and it was on his correspondence with that asshole Assange. So the Army with its sophisticated intel technology narrowed down all of the Brad's that are military intelligence soldiers and were born in 1987. Bingo, too easy, in jail. What a ninja you are Brad Manning.
26 July 2010
Mountain Infantry
I received my updated RFO (Request for Orders) this weekend. I will be heading to the 2nd BCT, 10th Mountain Division, Ft. Drum, NY. They are the most deployed BCT since Fall 2001. Big shoes. (BCT subject to change until I sign in with a BN)
Climb to Glory
25 July 2010
Record heat index
Well, this week was hot, even for Ft. Benning. We spent most of it outside at the range which was tough if you can't shoot since you were out there a lot more. Monday we had classroom training on the M4. Attached our optics and our PEQ 15's (infrared laser for illuminating targets at night), took the weapon apart, sat through boring powerpoints. Tuesday we zeroed our weapons. Zeroing, for those of you who are not card carrying NRA members, is when you tweek the weapons sights to get your view lined up perfectly with the target. It's easy if you can maintain a tight shot group and actually hit where you are aiming, but once you are out in the sun for 30 minutes it's pretty tough to keep your concentration up and the process takes longer. Some guys were out there for a few hours zeroing. No heat casualties that day. I was in one of the first groups and quickly went over to the shade when I was done where I sat for the remainder of the day reading and listening to some hilarious stories from the guys.
The first great story of the morning came while I was on the range. I heard the story when I got off the line and cracked up for the rest of the day. This LT, we will call him 2LT North, was waiting for his turn on the range so he popped in his iPOD and leaned against a tree. He fell asleep with his earbud in and I guess he rolled over on the side of his head. When he woke up the earbud was deep in his ear so he yanked on the wire. Well, the wire came out but the earbud stayed deeply lodged in his skull. He asked his buddy to look inside his ear and see if he could get it out with a leatherman pliers. The guy couldn't get deep enough inside and the piece was beginning to hurt. The genius then goes to ask the medic if he could help and it turned out that he didn't have a pair of tweezers so he sent him down the road to another group at a different range. Turned out this group was a basic training company. Now this 2LT walks up and a Drill Sergeant sees him so approaches with a salute. "Hey sir how can I help you?" "Well DS, I got a piece of hearing protection lodged in my ear." DS: "Really?" So now the LT changed it from iPOD bud to ear plug, probably a smart move. The medic at that range couldn't help either, but offered to drive him to the clinic on Sand Hill. Long story short; the guy's ear was cleaned out by a nurse, but while he was gone the story got around to our NCOs who had a field day with him when he returned an hour later. You really can't make this stuff up. As hot and boring as it is waiting around on a range all day, it is always entertaining.
Wednesday we went to a range that had 75, 175, and 300m targets hooked up to a sensor system that gave instant feedback as the where you hit on the target or how badly you missed. My weapon was zeroed well and I shot well so I went into Thursday's official qual day with confidence. Unfortunately we did all of our qual prep without wearing the IBA (vest), but we did our qual with a vest on. It totally changed my posture and I didn't adjust my rifle butt stock so I shot poorly for my official qualification. But hey at least I did qualify. There were a few guys out on the range for hours attempting to hit 23 out of 40 pop-up targets. We have a handful of international students who had a hard time with this one. There was a heat index of 120 and we were told it was the hottest day of the summer so far. At least I wasn't out with my roommate's company who is about 10 weeks ahead of us and doing there final week-long FTX in that heat.
Friday was a 4- mile ruck march and weapons cleaning. An easy day and we were released around 2. The other great story that I forgot to share last week is compliments of my USMA buddies. So about six of us are sitting around doing nothing one day and my buddy starts telling his story about his classmate from West Point who is sitting in the group listening. They had a formal event so each cadet had a date for the weekend. The guy telling the story and a handful of other cadets told the girls in their group that this other guy, sitting right there listening to the story, was part of the Make a Wish Program. He was special needs and it was his dream to spend a year at West Point. The guy is a little quite, so I can see how this might fly. Turned out they had the girls going the whole weekend. The best part was at the end of the story when the guy turned to the story teller and said he had no idea about the whole thing and couldn't believe they told the girls he was from Make a Wish. We all erupted and sort of understood how they got away with the story.
Last funny comment: we have a guy in my platoon whose name is Bobby Hill. Not Robert Hill or Bob Hill, Bobby Hill is on his official documents.
This week we are at the range again doing more advanced marksmanship. We will go over different techniques to engage targets, do a range with moving targets, more night fire, and our first live fire as a fire team (about 4 guys moving together engaging targets together). Should be fun. Hope everyone is doing well, can't wait for the football season to get going.
The first great story of the morning came while I was on the range. I heard the story when I got off the line and cracked up for the rest of the day. This LT, we will call him 2LT North, was waiting for his turn on the range so he popped in his iPOD and leaned against a tree. He fell asleep with his earbud in and I guess he rolled over on the side of his head. When he woke up the earbud was deep in his ear so he yanked on the wire. Well, the wire came out but the earbud stayed deeply lodged in his skull. He asked his buddy to look inside his ear and see if he could get it out with a leatherman pliers. The guy couldn't get deep enough inside and the piece was beginning to hurt. The genius then goes to ask the medic if he could help and it turned out that he didn't have a pair of tweezers so he sent him down the road to another group at a different range. Turned out this group was a basic training company. Now this 2LT walks up and a Drill Sergeant sees him so approaches with a salute. "Hey sir how can I help you?" "Well DS, I got a piece of hearing protection lodged in my ear." DS: "Really?" So now the LT changed it from iPOD bud to ear plug, probably a smart move. The medic at that range couldn't help either, but offered to drive him to the clinic on Sand Hill. Long story short; the guy's ear was cleaned out by a nurse, but while he was gone the story got around to our NCOs who had a field day with him when he returned an hour later. You really can't make this stuff up. As hot and boring as it is waiting around on a range all day, it is always entertaining.
Wednesday we went to a range that had 75, 175, and 300m targets hooked up to a sensor system that gave instant feedback as the where you hit on the target or how badly you missed. My weapon was zeroed well and I shot well so I went into Thursday's official qual day with confidence. Unfortunately we did all of our qual prep without wearing the IBA (vest), but we did our qual with a vest on. It totally changed my posture and I didn't adjust my rifle butt stock so I shot poorly for my official qualification. But hey at least I did qualify. There were a few guys out on the range for hours attempting to hit 23 out of 40 pop-up targets. We have a handful of international students who had a hard time with this one. There was a heat index of 120 and we were told it was the hottest day of the summer so far. At least I wasn't out with my roommate's company who is about 10 weeks ahead of us and doing there final week-long FTX in that heat.
Friday was a 4- mile ruck march and weapons cleaning. An easy day and we were released around 2. The other great story that I forgot to share last week is compliments of my USMA buddies. So about six of us are sitting around doing nothing one day and my buddy starts telling his story about his classmate from West Point who is sitting in the group listening. They had a formal event so each cadet had a date for the weekend. The guy telling the story and a handful of other cadets told the girls in their group that this other guy, sitting right there listening to the story, was part of the Make a Wish Program. He was special needs and it was his dream to spend a year at West Point. The guy is a little quite, so I can see how this might fly. Turned out they had the girls going the whole weekend. The best part was at the end of the story when the guy turned to the story teller and said he had no idea about the whole thing and couldn't believe they told the girls he was from Make a Wish. We all erupted and sort of understood how they got away with the story.
Last funny comment: we have a guy in my platoon whose name is Bobby Hill. Not Robert Hill or Bob Hill, Bobby Hill is on his official documents.
This week we are at the range again doing more advanced marksmanship. We will go over different techniques to engage targets, do a range with moving targets, more night fire, and our first live fire as a fire team (about 4 guys moving together engaging targets together). Should be fun. Hope everyone is doing well, can't wait for the football season to get going.
17 July 2010
Back to eating MREs
This week was the first real training here at IBOLC. I finally feel like I am back in the actual Army again, and by that I mean eating an MRE sitting on my ruck sack drenched with sweat with no available shade listening to a the ridiculous comments coming out of my platoon mates....it was a great feeling. The best part of this week by far was the entertainment from guys in my platoon that I will describe as I go through the week.
Monday we had the rare privilege of sleeping in with a 0900 report time. The NCOs had a PT test so we were instructed to PT on our own and be at the building for classes after breakfast. We received classes on the role of the platoon leader, building a PT plan, equal opportunity (EO), and anti-terrorism. I have received a bunch of EO classes through the National Guard and ROTC, it is a mandatory class for any unit to receive periodically. This was by far the most entertaining EO class I have heard. In a room of 160 21-30 year-old infantry grunts an E-6 preformed an EO class that left the class in stitches. It was hilarious, but made the clear point that in a male dominated profession you must still abide by standards, and at times their are females and civilians present. The anti-terrorism class was designed by someone detached from reality. This class instructed us how to act in our everyday lives to prevent terrorists from attacking us. It recommended everything from not taking the same route to and from work, to taking a lap around your car from 10-15 feet away looking for wires and then taking a closer inspection prior to getting in the car. This is to be preformed every time you get in your car. Not while on deployment - while here in the states when you are leaving the movie theater. The best part was the recommendation to inform your "servants" of your anti-terrorism planning at the home and to administer night patrols around your neighborhood looking for suspicious activity. As you can expect this class was taken about as seriously as the EO class, but it's a requirement so we had to sit through it and laugh.
Tuesday was the combat water survival test (CWST) and prep for the field. We just had to make sure that everyone had everything that they needed. But back to the CWST. It's a jump from a 3 meter board with a blindfold on and a rifle in hand, then a 15 meter swim. Too easy and it felt good to jump in the pool after the run over to the pool. The first few guys that jumped off the board felt compelled to yell "RANGER" as the jumped for some reason and the female lifeguard turned around to ask those of us waiting in line if that is what we yell when we are scared. Of course we assured her that yes she was correct on that one.
Wednesday we got to the company area early fully packed and took buses over to the Air Assault School (AAS) to do the obstacle course before the medical training that would take up the rest of the week. Now when you are at AAS you have to pass each obstacle in order to enter the course. The AA Sergeants make you do stupid exercises between each obstacle just for fun since none of the obstacles are all that hard. This time around my platoon was standing in front of the weaver waiting to get started when the SGT in front of us yelled over to his buddy and did a flutter kicking motion with his fingers. I guess he got the go ahead and he yelled out for us to get on our f-in backs and do flutter kicks. Now if this was basic or AAS there would be no hesitation and we would have all flopped down and got to kicking, but we all just kind of looked at each other like "is this guy serious," then he yelled a bit more so we all, very begrudgingly, got down and started doing flutter kicks. I was back at AAS all over again. By the time it was my turn to get on the obstacle I was so pissed I went too fast and my sweaty hands slipped and I smashed my head on the bottom bar and hit the ground. I was fine but now just not having fun as I went up the obstacle. At the rest of the obstacles we were not forced to do any stupid exercises while we waited so it went smooth.
Once we were done with the O-course we got back on the buses and went to the TTB (Tactical Training Base) that was going to be our home for the next three days. It was a bunch of huge tents with AC about the size of a basketball gym. There were showers and we had hot chow. Really roughing it now. As soon as we got there we were told that some general wanted to do a run with the whole battalion so we were not going to be sleeping out there tonight and would do the run the next morning and come back for training after. So much for sleeping in the hotel for two nights. We started the medical training which was taught by contractors from Northop Grumman who were mostly retired 18Ds (Special Forces Medics), so the training was pretty good and always a skill to get as much exposure to as possible.
The best though was the comments from the guys in my platoon. It got to the point that my buddy and I sitting in the back started writing down one-liners that were just too good to allow us to forget who said them. One guy from Florida had a good one. The instructor was discussing what you do when you approach a casualty. He said you should talk to the casualty in order to...then he paused waiting for someone to fill in the blank. A good answer may have been to reassure him and gauge his level of responsiveness, but this Floridian spits out "to build rapport!" The entire class hit the floor laughing. Another one that I must warn you is a little graphic, however, the way the kid said it needs no cleaning up really - we were discussing a needle chest decompression which is basically shoving a 14-gauge needle into the lung to prevent it from collapsing as it fills with fluid. The idea is to line the needle up with the nipple above the third rib. This guy raises his hand and very hesitantly asks "now sir what if you have a female casualty whose anatomy causes the nipple to sag to the side? You know if she's....busty?" Again we all hit the floor, but the kid was seriously not sure what to do. No, neither one of these guys was a West Pointer, but the next day we got two good ones from our Academy reps.
The run with the post commander and CSM was slow and not great PT, but the general wants, the general gets. After the run we went to a field to do some PT and he spoke to us and answered a few questions. Right when we were released this guy from West Point turns around to the guys around him and in a very serious tone he tells everyone to bring it in and listen up. "Now you gotta get through Ranger school boys. You - you need to get through Ranger School, get that tab. NCOs are the backbone of the Army, you officers aren't anything without them." And he went on for a few minutes basically mocking everything the general had just said to us. The guys around him were cracking up, right up to the point that one of our NCOs was standing behind the guy listening to everything he was saying. The kid was shocked and shut up, but the damage was done. On Friday when we were released for the weekend he was called into the 1SG's office to explain himself. It was priceless.
The rest of the week was all medical training. Next week we are going to the range to do day and night fire. Should be fun, but I hear there is very little shade out there so I'm going to go to Dicks and try to find a few tent polls that will fit in my ruck to make some shade.
I saw Inception today and I recommend it to any of you with an imagination. Really good movie. Sort of Matrix-like, but much better acting and a cool idea presented well. Hope it's not too hot where everyone is, and if you think you are hot just think of us down here at Benning playing outside all day. I think I'm drinking about 10 quarts of water a day.
Monday we had the rare privilege of sleeping in with a 0900 report time. The NCOs had a PT test so we were instructed to PT on our own and be at the building for classes after breakfast. We received classes on the role of the platoon leader, building a PT plan, equal opportunity (EO), and anti-terrorism. I have received a bunch of EO classes through the National Guard and ROTC, it is a mandatory class for any unit to receive periodically. This was by far the most entertaining EO class I have heard. In a room of 160 21-30 year-old infantry grunts an E-6 preformed an EO class that left the class in stitches. It was hilarious, but made the clear point that in a male dominated profession you must still abide by standards, and at times their are females and civilians present. The anti-terrorism class was designed by someone detached from reality. This class instructed us how to act in our everyday lives to prevent terrorists from attacking us. It recommended everything from not taking the same route to and from work, to taking a lap around your car from 10-15 feet away looking for wires and then taking a closer inspection prior to getting in the car. This is to be preformed every time you get in your car. Not while on deployment - while here in the states when you are leaving the movie theater. The best part was the recommendation to inform your "servants" of your anti-terrorism planning at the home and to administer night patrols around your neighborhood looking for suspicious activity. As you can expect this class was taken about as seriously as the EO class, but it's a requirement so we had to sit through it and laugh.
Tuesday was the combat water survival test (CWST) and prep for the field. We just had to make sure that everyone had everything that they needed. But back to the CWST. It's a jump from a 3 meter board with a blindfold on and a rifle in hand, then a 15 meter swim. Too easy and it felt good to jump in the pool after the run over to the pool. The first few guys that jumped off the board felt compelled to yell "RANGER" as the jumped for some reason and the female lifeguard turned around to ask those of us waiting in line if that is what we yell when we are scared. Of course we assured her that yes she was correct on that one.
Wednesday we got to the company area early fully packed and took buses over to the Air Assault School (AAS) to do the obstacle course before the medical training that would take up the rest of the week. Now when you are at AAS you have to pass each obstacle in order to enter the course. The AA Sergeants make you do stupid exercises between each obstacle just for fun since none of the obstacles are all that hard. This time around my platoon was standing in front of the weaver waiting to get started when the SGT in front of us yelled over to his buddy and did a flutter kicking motion with his fingers. I guess he got the go ahead and he yelled out for us to get on our f-in backs and do flutter kicks. Now if this was basic or AAS there would be no hesitation and we would have all flopped down and got to kicking, but we all just kind of looked at each other like "is this guy serious," then he yelled a bit more so we all, very begrudgingly, got down and started doing flutter kicks. I was back at AAS all over again. By the time it was my turn to get on the obstacle I was so pissed I went too fast and my sweaty hands slipped and I smashed my head on the bottom bar and hit the ground. I was fine but now just not having fun as I went up the obstacle. At the rest of the obstacles we were not forced to do any stupid exercises while we waited so it went smooth.
Once we were done with the O-course we got back on the buses and went to the TTB (Tactical Training Base) that was going to be our home for the next three days. It was a bunch of huge tents with AC about the size of a basketball gym. There were showers and we had hot chow. Really roughing it now. As soon as we got there we were told that some general wanted to do a run with the whole battalion so we were not going to be sleeping out there tonight and would do the run the next morning and come back for training after. So much for sleeping in the hotel for two nights. We started the medical training which was taught by contractors from Northop Grumman who were mostly retired 18Ds (Special Forces Medics), so the training was pretty good and always a skill to get as much exposure to as possible.
The best though was the comments from the guys in my platoon. It got to the point that my buddy and I sitting in the back started writing down one-liners that were just too good to allow us to forget who said them. One guy from Florida had a good one. The instructor was discussing what you do when you approach a casualty. He said you should talk to the casualty in order to...then he paused waiting for someone to fill in the blank. A good answer may have been to reassure him and gauge his level of responsiveness, but this Floridian spits out "to build rapport!" The entire class hit the floor laughing. Another one that I must warn you is a little graphic, however, the way the kid said it needs no cleaning up really - we were discussing a needle chest decompression which is basically shoving a 14-gauge needle into the lung to prevent it from collapsing as it fills with fluid. The idea is to line the needle up with the nipple above the third rib. This guy raises his hand and very hesitantly asks "now sir what if you have a female casualty whose anatomy causes the nipple to sag to the side? You know if she's....busty?" Again we all hit the floor, but the kid was seriously not sure what to do. No, neither one of these guys was a West Pointer, but the next day we got two good ones from our Academy reps.
The run with the post commander and CSM was slow and not great PT, but the general wants, the general gets. After the run we went to a field to do some PT and he spoke to us and answered a few questions. Right when we were released this guy from West Point turns around to the guys around him and in a very serious tone he tells everyone to bring it in and listen up. "Now you gotta get through Ranger school boys. You - you need to get through Ranger School, get that tab. NCOs are the backbone of the Army, you officers aren't anything without them." And he went on for a few minutes basically mocking everything the general had just said to us. The guys around him were cracking up, right up to the point that one of our NCOs was standing behind the guy listening to everything he was saying. The kid was shocked and shut up, but the damage was done. On Friday when we were released for the weekend he was called into the 1SG's office to explain himself. It was priceless.
The rest of the week was all medical training. Next week we are going to the range to do day and night fire. Should be fun, but I hear there is very little shade out there so I'm going to go to Dicks and try to find a few tent polls that will fit in my ruck to make some shade.
I saw Inception today and I recommend it to any of you with an imagination. Really good movie. Sort of Matrix-like, but much better acting and a cool idea presented well. Hope it's not too hot where everyone is, and if you think you are hot just think of us down here at Benning playing outside all day. I think I'm drinking about 10 quarts of water a day.
13 July 2010
I love the Australian Spirit
"A drunk man who climbed into a crocodile enclosure in Australia and attempted to ride a 5m (16ft) long crocodile has survived his encounter." - BBC
The guy was kicked out a pub for being too drunk and went to the zoo. He climbed a fence and tried to wrestle a croc. It tore up his leg but the man was able to escape and, of course, went back to the pub to get a drink with blood gushing from his leg!
The guy was kicked out a pub for being too drunk and went to the zoo. He climbed a fence and tried to wrestle a croc. It tore up his leg but the man was able to escape and, of course, went back to the pub to get a drink with blood gushing from his leg!
11 July 2010
One week down
There is no place quite like Ft. Benning. Not just that it's a military post, but the mix of the infantry culture with an adjacent low income/ high crime community on the Alabama-Georgia border gives this place a charm that encourages you to either stay within the friendly confines of the gated community or head to Auburn on the weekends. Auburn is an interesting place. Last week at UGA the atmosphere was a lot like Blacksburg in the summer. Not too busy, older crowd, no crazy drunk students. Auburn on the other hand was about as busy as an average weekend at VT during the year. Young people everywhere, kid with his eyes closed hanging on for dear life to a parking meter as the frat kids take bets on how long until he hits the ground (the bouncer let this go on since there was money involved and no cop in sight). It reminded me of JMU.
We did go by the stadium and I am going to what I can to get to a game. A buddy of mine has a friend that lives right downtown who helped us out with a couch to sleep on and might be able to get us tickets.
Back to the actual reason I am here: done with week one and feel pretty confident about getting through this course ready for Ranger School, and more importantly ready for a platoon. The instructors are very professional, all officers Ranger Qualified, and all NCOs want to be here to train future PLs to not make the mistakes their PLs made. My platoon cadre consists of one CPT and 5 NCOs. The class is about 160 with a third of that being from West Point. A few OCS guys, a few National Guard, and a lot of ROTC. This week was all in-processing and running back and forth between briefs and equipment issue. We had the Ranger physical which was quite intrusive, but no problems with the peg leg from the Doc so I am good to go.
There are five or six guys in my platoon heading to Drum. The 6 foot 10 wide receiver from Army is in my platoon and heading to the 10th. His squad leader is maybe 5'5'' and 115lbs. so when these two stand next to each other it is hilarious. There is also a kid from Chantilly who went to UVA, and a kid from Yorktown. All in all I am satisfied with the platoon. No complainers, yet....
The most motivating aspect of the company is our 1SG. He is an intense man with an attitude that can only be explained by his 15 years with the Ranger Reg. and more than a half dozen combat tours. (Ranger deployments are usually 4-6 months, but they are doing kill or capture stuff most of the time, so very high speed with constant action) Our company guide-on (flag in front of company formation) is literally a 7 ft tall battle ax with the flag tied to it right below the blade. It's about 30 lbs. and although seriously bad ass looking, I crack a smile seeing it carried around. Just hope the bearer doesn't trip.
The cadre really emphasize the importance of all of us to get through Ranger school before we get to our first platoon. It really is a career ender for an infantry officer to not get through. You will not get a platoon and you are a second class citizen in the community. Sounds like a little pressure but it's just motivation to not say "I quit." I feel lucky to have the prep I got out of ROTC from my mentors.
The other part that is interesting about this whole thing is how small the Army is already. I met a kid who played lacrosse with AJ Hermandorfer at WP, a kid who went to school with a buddy of mine from N. Georgia College, and in an Auburn Bar a kid walked up to me with a VT hat on and said "hey you're Matt Sardo, I graduated from Robinson HS in 2005 and VT in 2009 and am in OCS now." Wasn't expecting that one, but at this point not surprised.
Next week will be intro briefings on leadership, the combat water survival test (which is a blast), and two nights in the field doing Combat Life-Saver (CLS) training. Nothing intense yet, but the heat makes the simplest task a health risk. On our 4 mile - 9 min. pace run Friday morning we had a guy fall out with a 107 core temp after being under ice sheets for 10+ minutes. That's some serious organ damage, and enough incentive to keep your PH well balanced on the weekend.
The big news of the week is that I will be in the 31 OCT Ranger class and if I can manage to get through first try I will be out of here before February. My Ranger class will have a break for Christmas as well which I was not anticipating. This means I will do the Darby and Mountain phases and go home for about 12 days, return and do the Florida phase. Mentally I think this can be a positive. Just do six weeks and you are done with the pain and starvation - go home and refit - return for the final exam. But since the cadre will know we are heading home after mountain and not to Florida I am sure they will make our last week in Dahlonega a good time. This is great news though since I will be able to make it to Erin's wedding in Feb.
Oh and last thing: I saw Predators last night. What a great way to waste two hours. It wasn't the all-star cast of the original but very entertaining for us fans.
We did go by the stadium and I am going to what I can to get to a game. A buddy of mine has a friend that lives right downtown who helped us out with a couch to sleep on and might be able to get us tickets.
Back to the actual reason I am here: done with week one and feel pretty confident about getting through this course ready for Ranger School, and more importantly ready for a platoon. The instructors are very professional, all officers Ranger Qualified, and all NCOs want to be here to train future PLs to not make the mistakes their PLs made. My platoon cadre consists of one CPT and 5 NCOs. The class is about 160 with a third of that being from West Point. A few OCS guys, a few National Guard, and a lot of ROTC. This week was all in-processing and running back and forth between briefs and equipment issue. We had the Ranger physical which was quite intrusive, but no problems with the peg leg from the Doc so I am good to go.
There are five or six guys in my platoon heading to Drum. The 6 foot 10 wide receiver from Army is in my platoon and heading to the 10th. His squad leader is maybe 5'5'' and 115lbs. so when these two stand next to each other it is hilarious. There is also a kid from Chantilly who went to UVA, and a kid from Yorktown. All in all I am satisfied with the platoon. No complainers, yet....
The most motivating aspect of the company is our 1SG. He is an intense man with an attitude that can only be explained by his 15 years with the Ranger Reg. and more than a half dozen combat tours. (Ranger deployments are usually 4-6 months, but they are doing kill or capture stuff most of the time, so very high speed with constant action) Our company guide-on (flag in front of company formation) is literally a 7 ft tall battle ax with the flag tied to it right below the blade. It's about 30 lbs. and although seriously bad ass looking, I crack a smile seeing it carried around. Just hope the bearer doesn't trip.
The cadre really emphasize the importance of all of us to get through Ranger school before we get to our first platoon. It really is a career ender for an infantry officer to not get through. You will not get a platoon and you are a second class citizen in the community. Sounds like a little pressure but it's just motivation to not say "I quit." I feel lucky to have the prep I got out of ROTC from my mentors.
The other part that is interesting about this whole thing is how small the Army is already. I met a kid who played lacrosse with AJ Hermandorfer at WP, a kid who went to school with a buddy of mine from N. Georgia College, and in an Auburn Bar a kid walked up to me with a VT hat on and said "hey you're Matt Sardo, I graduated from Robinson HS in 2005 and VT in 2009 and am in OCS now." Wasn't expecting that one, but at this point not surprised.
Next week will be intro briefings on leadership, the combat water survival test (which is a blast), and two nights in the field doing Combat Life-Saver (CLS) training. Nothing intense yet, but the heat makes the simplest task a health risk. On our 4 mile - 9 min. pace run Friday morning we had a guy fall out with a 107 core temp after being under ice sheets for 10+ minutes. That's some serious organ damage, and enough incentive to keep your PH well balanced on the weekend.
The big news of the week is that I will be in the 31 OCT Ranger class and if I can manage to get through first try I will be out of here before February. My Ranger class will have a break for Christmas as well which I was not anticipating. This means I will do the Darby and Mountain phases and go home for about 12 days, return and do the Florida phase. Mentally I think this can be a positive. Just do six weeks and you are done with the pain and starvation - go home and refit - return for the final exam. But since the cadre will know we are heading home after mountain and not to Florida I am sure they will make our last week in Dahlonega a good time. This is great news though since I will be able to make it to Erin's wedding in Feb.
Oh and last thing: I saw Predators last night. What a great way to waste two hours. It wasn't the all-star cast of the original but very entertaining for us fans.
05 July 2010
Day 1
Tomorrow is day 1 of IBOLC. Look forward to getting started and meeting all of the guys I will basically be spending the next 6 months with here at Benning. Not looking forward to the 0430 report time, or the fact that we were recommended to bring a sack lunch due to the long day of in-processing we should expect. I hear from buddies that tomorrow is an easy day of sitting in the sun baking in order to fill out three or four forms.
The week should be light. The only real event will be the PT test. I will have a physical, sit in classes, and be introduced to the cadre. Well at least the train is starting to move.
The week should be light. The only real event will be the PT test. I will have a physical, sit in classes, and be introduced to the cadre. Well at least the train is starting to move.
04 July 2010
Happy Birthday America
America Rules:"Tell the world why you're proud of America. Tell them when "The Star-Spangled Banner" starts, Americans get to their feet -- Hispanics, Irish, Italians, Central Europeans, East Europeans, Jews, Muslims, white, Asian, black, those who go back to the early settlers, and those whose English is the same as some New York cab drivers I've dealt with, but whose sons and daughters could run for this Congress. Tell them why Americans, one and all, stand upright and respectful. Not because some state official told them to, but because whatever race, color, class or creed they are, being American means being free. That's why they're proud."
- Tony Blair in front of a joint session of Congress 17 July 2003
03 July 2010
Welcome to Ft. Benning: IBOLC vs. OSUT
As I said in my last post this is not my first trip to
Well for starters OSUT was free of any thinking on my part. Dad dropped me off at the armory in Leesburg, I got in a van and was driven to
Back to 30th AG – the Reception Battalion for the 198th Infantry Regiment is about the most depressing place outside of real prison I can imagine. We get off the bus in our civilian clothes at about 2300 and don’t stop shuffling through the assembly line of haircuts, clothing issue, medical exams (to include the peanut butter shot), paperwork, and learning on the fly how to sleep sitting up without getting caught. The sleeping part involves a bit of team work and quick elbows whenever a DS is near to avoid a quick dose of “corrective training.” We were there for about 10 days waiting in lines and questioning what we were thinking enlisting in this organization. I passed any free time I had by running up and down the back stairs to break in my new boots. All the other goons thought I was crazy, but crazy like a fox, I stayed in shape for the real thing that was starting in the next few days. I also became pretty good at sneaking onto the pay phones to call my gf and fill her in on the hilarious antics of my new employer.
Now here for IBOLC I already have uniforms and all the other gear I received at 30th. I made a run yesterday to Commandos Military Surplus to get reflective “cat-eyes” sewn onto the back of my cap which is the standard here and at Ranger School, bought a new pair of cool-guy boots (ultra-light weight Nikes that feel more like basketball shoes than combat boots), and, at the recommendation of my buddy, turned my “British haircut” into a standard Infantry clean cut. I avoided the complete shave and the high-and-tight by getting what the barber called a skin-mid-short-fade? I now look the part I suppose…
Both of these cases are prior to the actual start of the school. I will compare the “shark attack” from Sandhill with the IBOLC roll call and issuing of a stack of books that sounds more like undergrad than the Army, but hey I’m an officer now, right?
So, just finished watching the beat down of
01 July 2010
Back in Columbus, this time I brought my lap top.
I drove down to Athens, GA on Monday of this week enroute to Ft. Benning, GA for the Infantry Basic Officer Leader Course. The drive was uneventful but full of little perks of the south.
I was listening to the World Cup game on the radio (yes the vuvuzelas over the radio are worse than on TV, but I wanted the game), and as soon as I got out of reach of Richmond radio I lost coverage. As I scanned the radio for the game I came across NASCAR stations bitching about stupid soccer, four Rush Limbaugh broadcasts on four different stations, and a variety of evangelical preachers explaining why the anti-christ in the white house was going to sell our souls so people of otter races don't have to work. Oh, and the vuvuzelas sound a lot like AM static so I listened hard a few times on non-existent stations for an announcer to chime in over the hornet's nest - with no luck.
Eventually I put on a CD and crossed the international border into Dixie Land. Surprisingly their were no border guards. Their were the subtle signs though. The buckle up sign in GA has a dark blue image of the state with a red seat belt across it that to my conspiracy theory trained eye resembled the national flag down here.
I stopped in Athens to visit Gabby who has been down at the UGA Vet school as an intern for the past year. She was in her last days of work and I enjoyed the going away party we went to full of Vets who were very courteous to this traveling soldier. It was a nice break in the trip and I even had the pleasure of helping Rick pack a U-Haul with all of her belongings. She is heading up to Calgary this weekend and will start at the zoo on Monday. Talking to her about how competitive these gigs are it sounded like she got the job because of the fact she is a passionate hockey fan/player. I was very proud and told her she might be best suited staying up on that side of the border.
After helping with the move I drove the remaining three hours to Benning through the lovely GA countryside. Once I hit the outskirts of ATL I was in familiar territory and cruised the rest of the way. I checked into my apartment which is in a Gated Community a few minutes from Post called Independence Place Apartments (AKA FOB IP - Dad will get that one). It's a brand new complex full of 2LTs who are scarce to find here during the week since most are in the field or using the rooms as long term storage while their are at Ranger School. No complaints about the digs.
I went to check in on post which was interesting since I have lived here a few times but only traveled on foot, by Army truck, or cab while at Airborne. It took a minute but I got my barrings and found the building. Check in involved a 2LT giving me a welcome letter and telling me I had the weekend off. "Tuesday 0430, read this." Great to meet you too. I made a PX, Commissary, and Wall-Mart run to get among other things a coffee maker that was surprisingly not in the apt already. I met up with my roommate and buddy Hysen this afternoon when they were released and we went out to eat. Nice to see those guys. Hysen is going to have a kid, his wife Darcy is pregnant and he is very excited.
I have a few errands to run tomorrow between the games, and I have been going on short runs a few times a day to acclimatize as quick as possible. It is a different heat down here in Satan's armpit.
I hope to add to this blog a few times a week. I hope Lauren will get off my back for not having facebook. As I learn more about this blogging thing it will get better and I will get some pics up of the place. Feel free to comment and although it's not as great as facebook you know my email and phone. Love all.
I was listening to the World Cup game on the radio (yes the vuvuzelas over the radio are worse than on TV, but I wanted the game), and as soon as I got out of reach of Richmond radio I lost coverage. As I scanned the radio for the game I came across NASCAR stations bitching about stupid soccer, four Rush Limbaugh broadcasts on four different stations, and a variety of evangelical preachers explaining why the anti-christ in the white house was going to sell our souls so people of otter races don't have to work. Oh, and the vuvuzelas sound a lot like AM static so I listened hard a few times on non-existent stations for an announcer to chime in over the hornet's nest - with no luck.
Eventually I put on a CD and crossed the international border into Dixie Land. Surprisingly their were no border guards. Their were the subtle signs though. The buckle up sign in GA has a dark blue image of the state with a red seat belt across it that to my conspiracy theory trained eye resembled the national flag down here.
I stopped in Athens to visit Gabby who has been down at the UGA Vet school as an intern for the past year. She was in her last days of work and I enjoyed the going away party we went to full of Vets who were very courteous to this traveling soldier. It was a nice break in the trip and I even had the pleasure of helping Rick pack a U-Haul with all of her belongings. She is heading up to Calgary this weekend and will start at the zoo on Monday. Talking to her about how competitive these gigs are it sounded like she got the job because of the fact she is a passionate hockey fan/player. I was very proud and told her she might be best suited staying up on that side of the border.
After helping with the move I drove the remaining three hours to Benning through the lovely GA countryside. Once I hit the outskirts of ATL I was in familiar territory and cruised the rest of the way. I checked into my apartment which is in a Gated Community a few minutes from Post called Independence Place Apartments (AKA FOB IP - Dad will get that one). It's a brand new complex full of 2LTs who are scarce to find here during the week since most are in the field or using the rooms as long term storage while their are at Ranger School. No complaints about the digs.
I went to check in on post which was interesting since I have lived here a few times but only traveled on foot, by Army truck, or cab while at Airborne. It took a minute but I got my barrings and found the building. Check in involved a 2LT giving me a welcome letter and telling me I had the weekend off. "Tuesday 0430, read this." Great to meet you too. I made a PX, Commissary, and Wall-Mart run to get among other things a coffee maker that was surprisingly not in the apt already. I met up with my roommate and buddy Hysen this afternoon when they were released and we went out to eat. Nice to see those guys. Hysen is going to have a kid, his wife Darcy is pregnant and he is very excited.
I have a few errands to run tomorrow between the games, and I have been going on short runs a few times a day to acclimatize as quick as possible. It is a different heat down here in Satan's armpit.
I hope to add to this blog a few times a week. I hope Lauren will get off my back for not having facebook. As I learn more about this blogging thing it will get better and I will get some pics up of the place. Feel free to comment and although it's not as great as facebook you know my email and phone. Love all.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)