Tuesday, October 17

Up before the sun once again. We were up with the 0530 wake-up call and in formation at 0600. As an entire Company we road marched in our Platoons for 3 miles averaging 16 minutes a mile. That may seem slow, but with all of our gear on our backs and our weapons at the ready, it was a long walk.

We returned back to the FOB for a hot breakfast followed by a "Walk the Dog" of the Land Navigation Course. We spent 4 hours walking to different point on the course to familiarize us as to how we would be tested on the exercise. To pass this exercise we were expected to walk successfully walk to 3 of our 4 points in a three hour period. To find the points we are given an eight digit grid cordinate, a compass, a map, and a protractor. During the walk the dog of the course, Captian Hurd who lead my squad on this gave us the coordinates to the furthest parts of the course. We walked another 3-4 miles with Captian Hurd. Wow did my feet hurt!!!

Following our MREs for lunch (see thepic) we had five 40-minute course regarding Basic Rifle Marksmanship. The afternoon courses are held under the cover of trees which help keep us from falling over from the heat.

Dinner was a hot meal which was followed by mandatory study hall. During this study hall we had time to review our M-16s, M9s, radio building, and calling for a MEDEVAC all of which were to be tested later that week. Study hall ended about 2030 and lights out was at 2200.

That night 3rd Platoon was assigned CQ duty. We were responsible to cover the office for the night including the phone and the radio. We decided that the girls would be responsible this week so we set up a schedule to have two girls at a time sit in the office switching every hour. I was assigned the 0500-0600 shift on Wednesday moring with CPT Urso. During our shift we were responsible for a the radio check and to perform the wake up call. I was assigned the wake up call so I had to walk around to all 10 tents and announce the 0530 time and that this was the wake-up call. Let's just say that this made Wednesday a little longer.