Back From The Dead

I got back to New York late last night. 2 hours later than expected, actually. Ranger School really wasn't at all like I thought it would be, but then again, I guess nothing ever is. Tornadoes and golf-ball sized hail tore through Ft. Benning and the rest of Georgia the week before I left. Smashed car windshields and overturned outhouses were not an uncommon sight. But that's all behind me now. Much farther south.

I lost about 20 pounds, but have gained it all back. I feel like I have been eating constantly. My food regulator is broken or buried beneath weeks of 2-meal-days, and MREs to boot. I am polishing off a package of Keebler EL Fudge cookies and a venti caramel macciato-however-you-spell-that from Starbucks. I learned how to count calories...the opposite of how most people do. Most dieters are so concerned with calorie intake that they go to the extreme of measuring foods into exact serving sizes or buying Nabisco 100 calorie packs. I was eating about 2500 calories a day and burning about 3500, thus losing weight. I learned how to be a shrewd MRE dealer. Skittles have 250 calories and vanilla dairyshakes have 460. You've got to find that guy that absolutely loves Skittles, make the swap, and bam, that's 200 more calories than you had before. Now you have all kinds of energy, while Skittle guy is struggling to kick it up the hill.

Much of my last month was spent in the mountains of Northern Georgia. The Appalachian Trail cuts right through the mountains of Northern Georgia. I say mountains, but really they are more like hills. We would go up and down 3 or 4 of them in one day. The funny part is, we shared the Appalachian Trial with civilian hikers. They would be relaxing around their warm camp fire around 9pm, settling in for a nice, long 5-plus hours of sleep. My Ranger buddies and I, on the other hand, are cold, dirty, stinky, and still have an ambush to set up at the top of the next hill. So in other words, no sleep until 3am, with a 430 wake-up. but I laugh to myself, because I'm pretty sure these Marmot/Merrill-wearing hikers only have granola and rice to look forward to. And I have a dairyshake. And Skittle guy has Skittles, if he hasn't eaten them yet.

My fingers are still numb. It's colder than you might think in the hills of Northern Georgia. But that isn't the reason my extremities have lost feeling. The real reason is that wasn't drinking the 8 daily quarts of water required to maintain regular circulation while sweating profusely. Also, my 80-pound ruck sack partially cut off circulation to my arms and fingers. It was really only 80 pounds if I had to carry the m240b ammunition or tripod. Both add a significant amount weight to what would otherwise be a much more sustainable burden. Water is the other weight-adder. I would always try to ditch weight any way that I could. This usually meant dumping water or just not filling canteens. It is much more difficult to ditch rounds and impossible to get rid of that frickin tripod. The only way to shed rounds is, when afforded the opportunity, to completely unload the 240 ammo, in hopes of depleting the supply. This also proved to be a pleasant little bonus, because on those cold and rainy nights, when the 240 is unloading 1000 rounds within a period of a few minutes, it tends to heat about a 10 foot radius. So at least for a few minutes, I would bask in the heat of the 240 and in the glow of its barrel, which usually means it's time for barrel change.

Anyway, I think I'm going to get a kayak. I found a decent on today for $500. It's either that or a bike. I'm still deciding. It's 60 degrees and blue skies here, so I need to seize the carp. That's it for now. By the way, go Blazers. Other than that, that's all I have. Peace for now!