M-16 qualification

We spent this week shooting and qualifying with the M-16. The M-16 is fairly easy to handle, although this statement is based on my very limited knowledge and experience with firearms. It's made even easier by our "Close Combat Optic" attached to the gun (I'm going to use gun in this post because that's what most people call it; in the Army, though, if you say "gun", everybody will yell at you because you're supposed to call it a "weapon." Apparently "gun" means an artillery piece). The CCO has a red dot that you use for your sight. It doesn't shoot a laser onto the person like in the movies, but just shows a red dot for you to see. Apparently, if your target is within 150 meters and you put the red dot on the target, you will hit the target. Of course, if you line up the red dot in the middle of your optic, you'll actually hit where you're aiming.
For qualification, they have pop-up targets every 50 meters (yes, meters) starting at 50 and going all the way to 300. The targets pop-up for a certain number of seconds depending on their distance and fall down when you hit them. Sometimes two targets will pop up at the same time. Also, the targets are different depending on where they are. The close targets -- up to 100 meters -- are silhouettes of a head and shoulders and they barely pop up from behind the berms. The farther targets are green silhouettes of a person down to about the knees. To qualify, you have to hit at least 23 of 40 targets with only one shot for each target. In addition, you have to do so from different firing positions. The first 20 shots are from the "prone supported position", which means you lie down on your stomach and put the gun on some sandbags. The next 10 are from the "prone unsupported position", which means you take the gun off the sandbags and just hold it. The final 10 are from the "kneeling unsupported position", which means you balance on one knee and hold the gun without resting it on anything. The kneeling position is the hardest because it's really, really hard to keep the gun still. Your arms are moving all over the place and you basically just have to fire when you think your red dot is about to cross the target.
We did qualifications yesterday and I actually qualified on my first try. In typical Army fashion, however, it didn't go as planned. I was lying on my stomach wrapped in an extremely uncomfortable cocoon of body armor and "flick" vest (the flick vest is a vest that goes over our body armor and has a bunch of pouches for canteens, magazines, etc.) shooting at my targets when, after 10 targets, they stopped coming up. We were all waiting anxiously, looking around, trying to figure out if there was some hidden target we were missing when the control tower announced there was a glitch and we'd be started again in a few seconds. After we shot our 40, we went to the control tower to get our scores. There, we were told that the sensor didn't register our first 10 rounds , that that's sometimes how technology is. Basically, too bad. But not too bad for me! I had still gotten my 23, so I was done for the day. That was sweet. The only downside is it means I probably would've hit at least 30 out of 40, which would've made me a "marksmen" or something like that, but it wasn't worth keeping all that gear on to try again. (It wasn't until later that I realized it wasn't that the sensor didn't pick up our rounds. It was that the control tower messed up and put in the wrong program. That's why the targets stopped after 10.) People who had gotten close to 23 were pretty mad since it meant they had to go again even though they probably actually qualified.
The downside is that we spent the whole day today cleaning our guns. Can't they just let something fun be fun?

Flu Shots

I forgot to mention how, on Wednesday, after we'd woken up at 0200 and been in the field all day, they took us to get our mandatory flu shots. We were a little perturbed since none of us wanted to be sick the next couple of days when we had to certify. The nurse reassured us though by pointing out that we would be fine if we just got a lot of rest and ate well. Of course, we formed up on Thursday at 0200 and ate MREs for breakfast and lunch.

Land Nav aka Hell in the Forest

Land Nav is finally over, thank goodness. Although it's really only technically over because I still dreamt about it both Friday and Saturday nights. It was a nightmare, or as my friend more aptly put it, a "flaming disaster."
For your information, the land nav course is simply a large plot of land with posts stuck into the ground at various locations. The posts are about 4-6 feet high and have a number stuck on top of them. There's also a hole punch tied to the post. As a student, you're given the coordinates of various posts, from which you plot the position of the posts on your map. Then, you measure the angle and distances to the posts and head out to find them. When you find your post, you write down the number and punch your sheet with the hole punch from that post.
There are various difficulties with this, though. First, the posts are hard to see, since they're stuck in the middle of the forest, which amazingly has a lot of trees that tend to obscure the posts. This is even more true at night. Second, it's all guesswork. Your plot isn't exact since it's just you drawing a circle on a map. Your angle isn't exact since it's just you drawing a line on your map. The distance isn't exact since it's just you measuring your line against the scale in the legend. And the distance you've traveled isn't exact since it's just you counting your steps and estimating how many steps you take every 100 meters. Third, because of the inexactness, it's easy to go astray, which means you're likely to find a post that isn't the one you're looking for. But there's no way to tell since the posts are only marked with a 2-digit number. You can never be sure that the post you found is your post. And if it's not, the rest of your measurements are screwed up because you plot from point to point. So anyway, it's hard. To make it even harder, our cadre told us not to use the roads that traverse the course, but to take straight lines from point to point.
On Wednesday, we formed up at 0300 and started walking around the woods at 0500. Unfortunately, the sun doesn't come up here until about 0715. We had to find three points in the nighttime and had three hours to do it. I didn't find any. I shouldn't say that. I found two, but neither were what I was supposed to find. Then, we took an hour rest and started again in the daytime. This was easy. I found my three points in about an hour and spent the remaining two hours resting. I was fairly confident I would do okay for the qualification round on Thursday.
But then Thursday came around and turned into, as already mentioned, a flaming disaster. The land nav test course is fairly new and is huge. It's about 3 kilometers square or so, which means there's a long distance between the points. For the test, we were given 8 points and had to find at least 5 of them in 5 hours. It was such a flaming disaster that 82% of us failed (me included). Again, I found 5 points, but only 1 ended up being what I was actually supposed to find. There were two big problems on Thursday. First, the distance between the points was so large -- nearly all the points were 1000 meters apart, which, for all you measurement folks out there, is an entire kilometer -- that any minor deviation in angle or pace meant large deviations in location. Second, the area was an absolute jungle. It was dense. It was nearly impossible to take five steps in a straight line. And, as my same friend again noted, who knew so many plants had thorns? I always thought thorns were fairly rare, limited to roses and lemon trees, but it turns out nearly every plant has thorns. And vines. There were literally times were I was so entangled I wondered how I was going to get out. And we had to walk hundreds of meters in this stuff! Plus, much of it was in nighttime, so people fell into creeks, holes up to their shoulders, etc. Basically, there were two types of people who passed -- those who ignored our instructions and stuck to the roads as much as possible, and those who were significantly helped by cadre (which is limited to certain girls in our class, but that's a subject for another day). If you tried to do it on your own and in the way you were taught, you failed. I really can't explain the absolute frustration, despair, difficulty, and hellishness of Thursday, just let me say that I was struggling through places where not even animals had ever been.
On Friday, we had our re-test. Due to the horrifying experience of the previous day, cadre made some changes to the test procedures. First, we didn't start until 0600, so we only had to walk around in the dark for an hour or so. Second, we were told to use the roads. Third, we were allowed to talk to each other. Fourth, cadre drove around in trucks and would help us out. Fifth, and most importantly, they gave us a sheet of paper that listed all of the post numbers with their corresponding grid coordinates. Thus, when you came upon a post, you could figure out if it was yours, and if not, you could figure out where the freak you were. This time, most of us passed.
In the end, I'm really grateful it's over and glad I will probably never have to do land nav ever again (it's just not a high priority for JAGs). Although, I suppose if I'm ever told to go find a stick in the forest using nothing but a compass and a protractor, I can find the wrong stick.

The Weaver

Last week, we completed the obstacle course, or "confidence course" as they call it. It was just like on tv except it didn't have any mud puddles to splash through. Most of the obstacles were pretty easy, but "The Weaver" kicked my butt. The Weaver consists of a bunch of beams about three feet apart in a pyramid shape. Like it's name suggests, you have to weave your way through, going over one beam and under the next. The trick is to wrap your body around the beam, then use your momentum to kick your leg over the next beam as you go under the first (look at the guy on the right in the picture). It left me with some pretty nasty bruises on my legs. We also did "The Tough One" and the "Inverted Rope Descent." The Inverted Rope was tricky because you have to climb up the ladder to the platform, but the ladder rungs are about four feet apart. So, you have to pull yourself up to each rung, which gets kinda scary when you're 40 feet up in the air. Unlike the picture, though, they had us descend the rope upside down and feet first.

We were also issued M-16s for the first time. It's pretty crappy because you have to always be holding them, and they get heavy real quick. Plus, you have to be super careful about not accidentally waiving the barrel past someone and always keeping it pointed at the ground. Luckily we turn them in every night, so we don't have to sleep with them. We did get to practice some firing positions, i.e. prone, kneeling, and standing, but we won't actually get to shoot until next week.
This week is land navigation. We spent today learning how to read topographic maps, how to plot points on a grid, and how to measure the angle and distance between two points. Tomorrow, we'll spend all day traipsing around practicing and then we form up Wednesday morning at 0200 to do it at night. I think we're up at 0200 Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. In order to pass the land nav portion, we have to correctly arrive at at least 5 of 8 points in a certain period of time. If I have the energy in one of these coming days, maybe I'll tell you how it went.:)

Combat Livesaving

I am now a "Combat Lifesaver." I have a certified card and everything. It only lasts for a year, though, and then I have to re-certify. They loaded us up in buses Wednesday morning to take us to a faux "forward operating base" (FOB) where we were going to learn combat lifesaving techniques. As I mentioned, we had some tactical gear on and actually looked a little like real soldiers. As we got on the bus, my friend turned to me and said, "No matter what happens today, it will still be better than sitting in a classroom looking at PowerPoint presentations." Of course, as we got out of the bus, they directed us inside a huge room where they had us put our stuff down and take a seat. We then preceded to watch six hours of PowerPoint presentations.
The main skills they taught us were how to apply a tourniquet, how to seal a "sucking chest wound", and how to relieve tension pneumothorax (?) by sticking a needle into a person's chest cavity (this generally follows having to first seal their sucking chest wound). It was pretty heavy stuff and I was grateful their videos weren't working. The pictures they showed us were intense enough. I won't post any, but feel free to google images.

I spent my first Columbus Day weekend in Charleston and Savannah. It was a lot of fun, but I kept wishing my family were with me. Both cities have horse drawn carriages for the tourists, and when I'd see a horse, I'd yell "horsey!" Then I'd realize Carter wasn't there and get sad. Oh well. Only another month to go.

Ft. Benning

I'm sitting here alone in the hallway of a barracks located at Ft. Benning, GA. It's 10 pm and I have an hour to go on my shift as "fire guard." Basically, I'm just supposed to sit here and make sure a fire doesn't burn everyone alive. Apparently smoke detectors do not fit into the military's multi-billion dollar budget. I'm alone because we have formation at 4:15 tomorrow morning (just like we did today) and so everybody else is asleep. I'm going to be very tired, but at least I don't have the 1-3 am shift.
I'm here at Ft. Benning for six weeks of Army training, which is really infantry training. Each week consists of a different skill. This week is first responder training, so we'll be out in the field with our tactical gear learning first aid, etc. Next week is the obstacle course and the third week is land navigation. The fourth is weapons certification (9mm and M-4) and the fifth is combatives (martial arts). The last week is mainly outprocessing and then I'll move on to San Antonio. The schedule here is pretty intense and it's very different being with infantrymen as opposed to the JAG officers who were in charge of us at Charlottesville. For one thing, they focus a lot more on killing. Our first morning, they took us out on a slow jog and had us singing cadence. One went like this: "left, right, left, right, kill, kill, kill; left, right, left, right, you know I will." And that was one of the tamer cadences they had us chanting.
The hardest part is that Lorein and Carter are back in Temecula. I guess Carter loves it because he finally has some space to play in and some toys to play with. On my part, however, I miss them a lot. It's made doubly difficult by the fact I hardly have any time to talk with them. Oh well, it should hopefully go by fast. As one of my friend says, it's only 25 business days, and 2 of them are done with! Plus, we get a four-day weekend this weekend for Columbus Day. It will be the first time this westerner has ever gotten Columbus Day off and I am looking forward to it. Man, I should've been in bed 2 hours ago.