Back from the Field

Real quick update.

My leadership week went well.
There were no big problems except for one soldier who took someone to sick call and I did not inform the Trainers.

The history test on that Friday got quite a few people, about 25% failed and had to retest the next week. It was a bit difficult but with an hour or so of intense studying no one should have had a problem provided they payed attention in class.

The field week came up quickly.
On the first day we set everything up and had some quick classes on how to occupy the area where we were to bed down for the night....

Oh wait first we had a 7 mile ruck march. This was not as easy as the previous ones. The terrian was much more difficult, this time we were off the main roads all the time. We were on 'tank trails' and other heavily rutted roads. At first the load was quite heave but the Commander weighed some of the people and found out that the load was over 85lbs before carrying the weapon and ammo, so that got reduced by about 25lbs or so. We had a couple of people fall out of the march. I carried the 240b (M60 update for those of us who are a bit older) the last half and it wasn't too bad.

Land navigation was fun for me and that started first thing the next morning. Basically we are given a map, compass and grid cordinates for 8 points and told to find as many as we can. The area is a few square kms and the points are like road signs with numbers in the woods there. For me it wasn't a problem but many people had problems so we repeated the whole thing in the afternoon.

Tuesday we practiced night navigation by going out at 4am and finding several more points. The afternoon was classes on reacting to an ambush and other such infantry tactics.

Thursday was the real test, I was doing great having a nice relaxing time in the woods until I was headed to my last point and realized I no longer had my log sheet that I stamped at each point to prove I had found it. My heart dropped so I ran backtracking until I reached my last point and couldn't find it. I headed in just in case someone picked it up and turned it in for me but no such luck....time to get ready to go out the next morning. The afternoon was more classes like the previous day.

Friday morning I got up with the rest of the retestors (including the one canidate who got tree-ed by wild hogs the day before and had to be recscued) and headed back out for another round. I took my time at this point and stuck to trails and just relaxed and enjoyed it. I finished in plenty of time this go around and had a good morning. That afternoon we broke down camp and headed back to the rear.

Saturday we got a chance to replenish some of our supplies and eat pizza instead of MRE's.

Now it's Sunday and we're headed back out. This time we are doing 'lanes' where we put into practice most things that we have done on paper up until this point. At least now we will stay in tents instead of sleeping in dugin holes under the stars. It will be another week of long days and short nights. We will at least get a 3 day weekend for easter and then head back out for the final week.