Monday, October 16

We met in formation at 0500 to get on buses and head out to Camp Bollis. And no, this was not like camp when we were kids. As soon as we arrived at the Forward Operating Base (FOB) we unloaded our duffels into our tents. We were divided by Platoon and gender in the tents. We slept 30ish girls in our tent. Our FOB had no showers and had roughly 20-25 port-a-potties. Yup, baby wipe baths for a week!

Once our duffels were unloaded we were each issued an M-16 that was to be our buddy for the week. We slept with , ate with, trained with, and went to the latrine with that weapon. It was crazy! One more thing to carry over our shoulder. When we had all received our weapons we began classes at 0830. We had classes on how to take apart and rebuild our M-16s and then perform a functions test on it to be sure it would be functional when fired. With all the practice we had throughout the week I was able to do this in 2.5 minutes. Our second class was the same but with an M-9 pistol. I could do that one that morning in 34 seconds. The two other classes before lunch were regarding putting together our radios and using them with the final class teaching us how to request a MEDEVAC via the radio.

Following lunch we received training regarding Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical (NBC) gear. We were issued our masks and practiced putting them on in under 9 seconds and the rest of the MOP gear under 8 minutes. (Sorry the pics is not upright.) It was so stinking hot that afternoon and those suits are super heavy.

Just before dinner we set up our tents. After dinner we had 4 more classes to attend. We finished at 2100 and had lights out at 2200 with the next mornings formation to occur at 0600.