Back in P-Tizzle

So, I show up at Fort Jackson in South Carolina to report for training, and they tell me they have no rooms. This was Thursday. Thank goodness for Priceline. I bought a pretty cheap ticket and flew to Portland the next day. I didn't tell my parents I was coming. I just strolled up and knocked on the window. They were surprised. So I'm in old P-town until Saturday morning. So, if anybody is driving to the beach or wants to go, you may as well swing by my hoose and pick me up. That's about it.

Culmination Week

This past week at BOLC II was "Culmination Week". Simply put, it is a melding of all the tactics we had learned to that point. It was rough. I didn't get much sleep. I counted 12 hours of sleep for the 4 nights that we spent at the FOB. But it was all good training. The majority of my lack of sleep was due to the 10 mile ruck march that took place at 2am on Friday morning. I didn't actually sleep that night. But believe me, I slept Saturday morning. For like 12 hours. 12 awesome hours.

The best training that was conducted, in my opinion, was the night urban ops training. The McKenna Range was divided up and each platoon had 4 or 5 buildings that they had to clear. We had to use night vision devices in order to effectively clear the rooms. There was a constant barrage of artillery and grenade simulators being dropped and blank ammunition being fired. I swear I sort of saw my life flash before my eyes.

I actually could have slept on Thursday because it was my platoon's turn to provide OPFORs (opposing forces) as training aides for the other platoons. They only needed 6 and for some reason, I volunteered. It was actually really fun. I basically got to cause chaos while American forces tried desperately to destroy me. Good stuff.

Oh yeah, one more thing. One guy in my platoon, Frye, said that I should blog about blogging. I decided to take it a step farther and blog about the conversation that we had about blogging about blogging. So there it is. Here are some pics from the week:

Calm Before The Storm

This past week was a pretty chill week. The West Point Captain in charge of my platoon took the week off, so the training was run by some pretty chill Sergeants. The West Point Captain will be back next week for "culmination week". It's supposed to be the toughest week of this 7 week course. Bring it on. Once again, my platoon stayed in the FOB (forward operating base) this week, which is basically just a bunch of buildings and tents surrounded by a fence.

This week was definitely highlighted by the training that we did with sim rounds. The M4 was used to fire these rounds, but the upper receiver (the part with the barrel) was removed and replaced with a special upper for sim rounds. The sim rounds are basically bullets with a little paint tip on the end, but (of course) they don't go as fast...or else they would kill you. But they still hurt when they hit you and they usually broke the skin, as shown in the picture of my hand. The picture of the ammo shows a blank round and a fired sim round (no paint tip). The training was conducted at the world famous (apparently) McKenna Range at Ft. Benning. The range consisted of maybe 15 buildings, mostly without windows, used to conduct operations training. I'm just going to say, the training was sweet. The basic building clearing drill consisted of a squad of nine versus four enemies holed up in a building. The goal was to kill the enemies without being killed. It was fun to be the good guys, but it was also fun the be the enemies. The squad element had to use Army tactics, but the enemies could do whatever they wanted. It was like a big game of very painful paintball. Attached are some pictures.

I also participated in a volleyball-tournament/barbecue/swimming-session/rockband-playing-party today. That was fun. My team came in 2nd. I got a pretty nice sunburn. I also sang the songs "Say it aint so" and "Dani California" on rock band. If you get the chance, play that game. It is awesome. You can have the lead guitar, bass, drums and vocals all at once. No pics from today, sorry. But I can tell you it was a good time.

My Week + End

I had a pretty good week. I spent 4 days in the field and had a 3 day weekend. Thursday was land navigation (map, compass & 8 points complete with 8-digit grid coordinates). It wasn't that difficult, seeing as how the points were all 100 or more meters apart. I got up at 2:30 that morning. I began looking for my points at 4:30. So for about and hour and a half, there was darkness. Luckily, I found half of my points while it was still dark, making it easy to find the other 4 within my 5 hour time hack. I finished in 3:23 and was shocked to find that I was the second person back in the company. After some excruciatingly long classes on several US weapons systems, we were released for a 3 day weekend! I saw Hancock that evening and was not impressed. I still want to see Get Smart some time.

On the 4th, I drove up to Atlanta with some friends and saw the Braves play the Astros. The seats were sold out, so I had to buy standing room only tickets. Turner Field was impressively large and looked relatively new. We were able to snag a standing table directly behind the seats behind the batter. The Braves won. Fireworks must not be a big deal in Atlanta. The only fireworks that I saw were on the TV in the hotel room. We got the hotel room with the intentions of going to Six Flags the next day. Unfortunately, it started pouring the next morning, so we decided to go next weekend. We got back to Benning and I became rather hungry. It was 10 in the evening and nobody wanted to drive anywhere, so we ordered Chinese food. I need to make a habit of it. I had lo mein and it was was great.

Today for dinner, me and some friends went out for a nice dinner at Carrabba's. It was an Italian restaurant. Before the meal, they brought out freshly baked bread to be dipped into olive oil with spices. BTW, Thanks Bartlett for introducing me to such a tasty treat. If anybody gets the chance to eat at Carrabba's, eat there. Seriously. You won't regret it.

I find that these days, eating brings me enjoyment. But it is true that too much eating it not good for the body. I am still trying to find that balance between eating good food often and not eating too much. Here are some pics from this weekend: