In the past week or so, we've been camping, was one of the faster guys in my running group, had religion forced upon me and did really bad at shooting. The FTX (field training exercise) consisted of a file mile ruck march (which I didnt' have to do due to my knees) Instead, I had to haul out the craks to breakfast and then load the truck (note from Lisa: I am having a hard time reading this.. it doesn't' really make sense but then again it maybe lingo that I do not understand). I also got to be part of the raiding party on the march. This entailed firing blanks at the company while the DS sets off flash grenades. (the first platoon feels in horror.) Other highlights: land Nav can be simply put as having a team leader who considers himself an expert in land nav and the possession of an accounting degree means I am unable to figure out the complex world that is Land Nav. Basically, this means it took us 3 hours and 6-8 km through the thick woods what could have been done in an hour and 2-3 km of walking though light woods. to luck upon 6 targets (i.e. ending up half a km away and looking around). Did I also mention that this is all at night? so bad knees and all I fell down a few dozen times. Including one trip about a foot and a half down a rotten tree stump. On the plus side we were allowed to the candy in our MRES. So a couple of Tootsie rolls was the first chocolate (aside from chocolate milk) I've had in a month. We also did a couple of missions which might have been fun if I didn't' spend the entire time in the prone portion pulling security.
On Saturday, for PT, we did a 2 mile run in three different groups. Due to my stellar time on the PT test I ended up in C. group, which is the slowest group. Basically, we ended up doing more that 2 miles because three times we had to circle around to pick up the really slow guys.
On Sunday, when the drill sergeant ordered us to get in full battle (IB vest armour, LPE a pistol belt and suspenders holding a couple of canteens and ammo pouches and a Kavlar helmet). Apparently, several decided to find religion and go to church in lieu of the training (at least that is what the DS said) The DS then ordered the entire platoon to go to church and marched us out. After we got to the chapel, the Chaplin said that anyone who was order to be here was free to leave. about a dozen in my platoon got up and left. I stayed for 2 reasons. First, to not be disrespectful and second, my desire to continue sitting down.
On Friday we went to range to hte first time for grouping and zeroing. I unfortunately ended up with a lure that was a little more than a mud puddle. So I basically spent an bout four hours tyring to put six consecutive shot into 4 centimeter circle laying the prone on an inch of muddy water. Did I mention it started to rain? so my mud puddle got bigger during the day.
Saturday, we had Phase III testing which is a series of very easy, I mean very easy, tests. We also had to demonstrate a few functions of the MLB (loading, uploading, fixing a malfunction) and disassembling in under 2 minutes each. But, the highlight was giving each other IV's. Long story short, there was a lot of blood. Fortunately, despite my lack of visible veins in my battle buddy did a good job and i came out unscathed. I did everything correct but was unable to get the vein completely, but there was still no major blood loss.
Today we went back to the 30th AG for Phase II issue. Basically, we got a bunch of gear we'll never wear, we also got our class A uniform (dress greens), which I'll probably only wear once or twice.
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