Yup, up again at 0530. A hot breakfast at 0600 and then my platoon hopped on a couple trucks called a Duece and a Half. I am assuming that the name refers to the weight of the vehicle. They are huge trucks. I have never had to climb into a truck like that, so tall. Think of the stereptypical Army truck to move troops and that is the truck that I am talking about.
The trucks dropped us off at the firing range where we shot our M-16s for the first time. We were learning how to "zero" our weapons. It was so, so, so, so cold. The wind was blowing so hard that we had to postpone the actual process of zeriong. There were no trees around to block the wind so we received the brunt of it. We were so cold that we all eventually had to put on our rain gear to block the wind. It was crazy! I was not very good at zeroing. I was able to finally zero, but it took 10 magazines of three shots each.
After lunch we went across the street to be tested on our M-16 and M-9 skills along with our radio skills. My 9-line sounded like "Dustoff 3A this is Animal 6. I have a MEDEVAC. Over." (waited for a response) "Line 1 - HG 23497452, Line 2 - 60 point 25 break Animal 6, Line 3 - A2 break D2, Line 4 - A, Line 5 - L1 and A3, Line 6 - P, Line 7 - A, Line 8 - C, Over." Get any of that? Don't worry, very few do. I successfully passed all four of my tests that afternoon. (I like passing all these tests.)
Here is the kicker of Thursday. Remember back to Monday's post when I discussed the relationship we were supposed to have with our M-16s? We eat with it, sleep with it, and take it to the latrine with us. Two students accidentally switched weapons when they left their tent in the morning. On a regular day that would not have mattered but since we were actually firing our weapons, the accountability was extremely important. So this one girl could not find her weapon. We had repeated searches of our weapons while at the range. The weapon was finally located back at the FOB with her bunkmate. Upon our return to the FOB Major Dolin wanted to be sure that understood how important this really was. So he had CPT Teters "smoke" us with a "half-right, face". (We turn right and do way to many push-ups in cadence very slowly on a rocky surface in full gear with our weapon on our hands.)
Following dinner we had a brief FOB improvement of spreading out some rocks before heading for bed with lights out at 2200.
If you are heading to OBC, DO NOT LOSE YOUR WEAPON!!! MEMORIZE THE SERIAL NUMBER OF YOUR WEAPON!!!
2 comments:
Ya got me beat in artillery! Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to load a pellet gun? I looked like a fool! I did however suceed in shooting a paper plate picture of a rabit right square in the nose. :)
B.P.
Oh man... I was just re-reading all our letters from when Tim was at his 3 different AIT's and, much like basic, they got smoked multiple times every day. In one smoking session alone, they'd done over 400 pushups. Much respect for all soldiers who spend day after day like that, seriously... it takes a lot of mental stamina, not just physical. I suppose it's important for officers to get smoked at least once to get a taste of the experience, LOL. :) But as for me, I worry about him a lot less now so I'm glad all that is behind us. He was always the kind of guy who would never stop even if he puked... just puke and keep going. Crazy man.
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