Wow. So...less than a week left. We practiced the grad parade on friday, and for the first time it really felt like we're almost DONE!!! It's weird, because we're all so excited, but there are a lot of people that I'll miss. I thought I'd hate living in a room with so many other people, but now it'll be strange to be alone and not have awesome friends around all the time.
Of course, there are others that I will be very glad to NOT have around all the time.
I guess it evens out.
So the weekend was a lot of partying for people, since it's the last weekend we'll have together, and I won't go into the stupidity that arose from that. I did have a fun evening hanging out with a bunch of the people that attacked us in Week 12. They are all apparently waiting for courses to start and so were sent to St. Jean to act as victims/opponents for the recruits. They said they had fun taunting us.
Anyways, other than a lot of parade practice, grad week is a whole lot of nothing. They made me course senior all week, which sucks because it's more work when all everyone (including me) wants to do is less work. It's supposed to be a "congratulations for getting top marks, you're wonderful so we'll put you in charge" kind of thing, but I could do without it. It's the same deal for "Platoon Commander." That's actually kind of cool though, because I get to march by myself in the parade, but I really think there are other people that could do the yelling of commands a lot better than me. I'm not naturally loud to start with, so trying to be heard by people 20 feet behind me while a band is playing....not so much!
Wait...did I say less than a week left? Well, by the time I'm writing the rest of this, I'm looong gone!
Did I say nothing happens in grad week? I meant during the day, when we have an hour for lunch, our inspections are closed locker, and basically just to make sure our dress uniform is intact for wearing at the grad parade. Or to make sure our rifles are clean so they can be returned quickly afterwards. Our classes are pretty much trips to return stuff or fill out paperwork or find out our travel arrangements.
Of course, things DO happen at night.
Like the course party.
Just to give you a bit of an idea...the day afterwards, the Sergeant told us that we were his worst, most dysfunctional platoon ever, but we also had the best course party.
There was a buffet, some speeches in which old jokes were revisited and the instructors were let into some of the ones they didn't know about. Then one guy who was always joking with our Master Corporal in a less than savoury way (he was also rather drunk) came out in a sheet wrapped around him like a dress and veil and lip synced some cheesy love song (I don't even remember which one)while he "proposed"....to the MCpl. It was hilarious, and I believe there are videos.
Then the dancing started. The instructors were not drinking, but kind of acting like they were. The recruits were definitely drinking and not having to act like we were. But we all danced for and I think we had all of us out on the floor (even our straight laced Warrant Officer!) when "Tonight's gonna be a good night" came on. Somehow it didn't inspire the same dread that it had the week before. Anyways, it was a good night, though it finished early when the place closed down at 10. We were told we had 15 minutes to get upstairs though we didn't have to go to bed until lights out at 11. But, when we got up there around quarter after, the instructors started running through (still in their civilian clothes, which in itself was entertaining) yelling at everyone to get to bed they were turning the lights off NOW!
And that was the end of that. Or so we thought....we found out the next day that they had also run through our sister platoon's quarters (they had their party with ours sort of...but they were mostly in a different section and not having nearly so much fun) telling them to get to bed and jacking them up. A couple of those recruits talked back, I guess not realized that these guys were our staff. We got to watch our Sergeant back in his uniform yelling at them the next day and pointing them out to their own staff. It sounds terrible, but one of the funniest things to all of us the whole course was to watch our Sergeant jack up other platoons. They never knew what to do, because very few staff are as hardass as him. They always get this scared kitten look and just stand there and take it until he's done. It's funny because we know what it's like and it's not us. It happened a lot in the last week actually. It was like since our course was pretty much done, there wasn't much to get us in trouble for, so he went out of his way to do it to other people. Good times.
As for the rest of the week. Well, we had our grad parade. No one collapsed, even though we were standing in one spot for a very long time. Families came, Moms cried, speeches were dry, siblings sighed and finally we were DONE. There was a reception after, which was neat because we all got to meet each other's families. More beer was had, and this time with the instructors too. Friends said goodbye, and many many pictures were taken. Have I mentioned that I love having Korean friends? MANY pictures are up on Facebook.
So it's not really goodbye, since it's so easy to keep in touch with the people I want to. But we've all gone to different cities to finish training or to postings. I've heard from a few people about how they still have to have inspections or share rooms with 7 other people or...well, those guys are going through more of the same I guess, but for me, Basic training is done. I can't say "it's been good"...but it's been a good thing to do. I'm glad I went through it and had tough instructors. I was talking with one of my old platoon mates and he was saying that if he'd had an experience like some of the other platoons (we'd met a bunch of guys on our flights over) that he'd feel gypped for not really getting the experience. And even though there were some things that were terrible at the time, I'd have to agree. I'm glad it was so hard. There were days when we wanted to die, but at the end of every day, and every week we'd say "that wasn't so bad." And really? It wasn't. It's just like anything else, any other hard day at work...you just push on and keep going and make it through the day.
Okay whoa. I'm starting to get too philosophical about all this. Dude, it was awesome, but I'm glad it's done. I guess that's it for this blog too so I'll just close off with one last warcry.
AMPED ANGRY AND READY FOR WAR! OORAHH!!!
Roger. Out.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Monday, April 12, 2010
Ok, so it's been a while
Yes I have one more post to post, and no this is not it! Sorry for the lack of activity here. I'm long since graduated and at my new posting, but the lack of internet at home is preventing me from posting the post.
Or I could rewrite the whole thing on this other computer but that's too much work. Maybe I'll go buy a flash drive. That seems like an incredibly useful thing to do.
More later.
Or I could rewrite the whole thing on this other computer but that's too much work. Maybe I'll go buy a flash drive. That seems like an incredibly useful thing to do.
More later.
Saturday, March 27, 2010
Down to the wire
Week 12. The Big One. The Final Week. The One We've All Been Waiting For. Dun dun dunnnn..... Time to stop speculating, and time to start doing.
We'd decided that it would definitely be easier than week 11. For one, sergeant said that nothing would be harder than week 11, so we assumed that included week 12. For another, we were staying in a more permanent type of camp which meant that we didn't have to set up and take down the tents every night. That automatically made it better. And the weather was supposed to stay nice, which was also a plus.
We got attacked on our way to the camp. So as per usual for our platoon, things got started quickly and never stopped. The first night was the hardest, because our section got the short stick and had extra duties overnight. We found out the following night that it wasn't such a bad thing, because the people who didn't have base camp duties at night, had missions to go out on at the same time, so they weren't even around.
Yeah....so, missions. The whole idea of what we do in week 12 is based on missions. They're all simulations and are written to give us an idea of the different kinds of things that soldiers do in the Forces. Things like "these medical supplies need guarding from enemy terrorists until someone comes to pick them up", or "set up and man a roadblock for 2 hours" or "these refugees are being mistreated and tortured living in poor conditions, go to their camp and find out if this is true."
The missions were generally pretty cool and we fun with most of them. Some of them were especially entertaining because of the "victims". I could see that a few were having a lot of fun making up extensive back stories or ridiculous reasons as to why they were in their situations. Like the guy injured in a truck explosion who was worried about his fiancee/cousin who was also in the truck. They apparently had many hopes and dreams for the future. I would say too bad she didn't make it, but it's probably for the best that some of those dreams won't come true.
Some missions went better than others of course. Guarding the medical supplies was fun, partly because it was daytime and pretty warm out, but also because the "terrorists" were so entertaining when they came to demand supplies and taunt us. Our roadblock was probably the worst, but only because we were so bad at it. We let a truck go through with a 9mm on the rearview mirror, a machete under the backseat and another large knife hidden in a woman's bosom. Yeah. We were supposed to search there too, but I guess the boys were a little uncomfortable with that. Funny, I'm pretty darn sure they're comfortable with that sort of thing when they go out on the weekends.
One of the more annoying parts was how much we walked around to get to all the missions. There was usually at least a 2km walk there, and then back afterwards. We did 4 of these a day. Did I mention that our section was really bad at navigating and ended up having to walk way too far out of the way and back several times? I had blisters by Tuesday.
Wednesday night was probably the worst. We did a reconnaissance mission pretty much about as far away as it was possible to get. It was 4km there, then we met up with our guide who took us through swampy woods for another half hour, where most of the section had to wait kneeling in the mud while 5 of us took off most of our gear and went to sneak up to an enemy post and try to listen and gather info on when they would be attacking. Of course, we were lying in the mud too, but trying to be still and listening made it way more interesting than for the rest of the section, whose main concern was trying to stay awake. An hour later, we get back to them, and start walking back to camp. By the time we get there, the camp was already under a biological attack so we could not go near it and had to go back to the woods and find a place to hang out for a while until we were allowed back in. Did I mention the swamp? We were soaked and by that time it was 4am.
When we finally made it back into the camp, it was time to pack up and go. We had 15 minutes to do it or we would apparently be carrying our rucksacks back to the main base. We did it. Painfully, uncomfortably, and without breakfast, but we did it. Then waited around for 2 hours. That was cold. We wondered why we were waiting around doing nothing, but finally the attack came.
Oh right. The final attack. The time when we are sort of supposed to remember our drill and how to tell others where the enemies are, but really it's just an excuse to shoot as many rounds as possible. We were attacked by probably just about every one of the "enemies" that there were, and from every side. It was rather noisy. Needless to say, everyone had a lot of fun with that.
So like week 11, the main thing is that we survived. If there had been grades on it, we probably would have done pretty badly, since we let our sister platoon get up close to scout us and attack. Well, there was only 1 section in the whole place at the time, so it wasn't everyone, but still...the competition between the staff is just about as bad as the recruits, so we got a fair amount of hell for that. Also 7 negligent discharges with our rifles which is way off the scale as far as the number that's "ok"...not that any are really ok, since when we have live rounds that aren't blanks, the consequences can be a lot more serious, but they usually expect 1 or 2 on a platoon. People make mistakes and now is the time to make them, but 7...well, it's ridiculous. So we got a lot of hell for that too. I guess it's a good thing there weren't marks for it. But again, we made it, and it's over. It was a good experience and it's way easier to say that now that it's done, but it's true. We all did things we didn't know we could, and dealt with new situations under demanding conditions. Again there were no fistfights between recruits, so that's a plus. Apparently it came close once or twice.
But we're back on base, and getting some rest. Well, some of us are. Some others are getting just as little rest, but enjoying some freedom. Freedom to get drunk and party. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's now officially grad week and there are only a few days left here for everyone. One last kick at the can, then we all go our separate ways. It's been interesting, that's for sure, and there's definitely people I'm going to miss, but man are we looking forward to getting out of here!
...Except actually I am out of "here" as of right now. I'll post another couple about grad week and leaving later, but just so you know...I'm at the airport on my way to my posting. Woot!
We'd decided that it would definitely be easier than week 11. For one, sergeant said that nothing would be harder than week 11, so we assumed that included week 12. For another, we were staying in a more permanent type of camp which meant that we didn't have to set up and take down the tents every night. That automatically made it better. And the weather was supposed to stay nice, which was also a plus.
We got attacked on our way to the camp. So as per usual for our platoon, things got started quickly and never stopped. The first night was the hardest, because our section got the short stick and had extra duties overnight. We found out the following night that it wasn't such a bad thing, because the people who didn't have base camp duties at night, had missions to go out on at the same time, so they weren't even around.
Yeah....so, missions. The whole idea of what we do in week 12 is based on missions. They're all simulations and are written to give us an idea of the different kinds of things that soldiers do in the Forces. Things like "these medical supplies need guarding from enemy terrorists until someone comes to pick them up", or "set up and man a roadblock for 2 hours" or "these refugees are being mistreated and tortured living in poor conditions, go to their camp and find out if this is true."
The missions were generally pretty cool and we fun with most of them. Some of them were especially entertaining because of the "victims". I could see that a few were having a lot of fun making up extensive back stories or ridiculous reasons as to why they were in their situations. Like the guy injured in a truck explosion who was worried about his fiancee/cousin who was also in the truck. They apparently had many hopes and dreams for the future. I would say too bad she didn't make it, but it's probably for the best that some of those dreams won't come true.
Some missions went better than others of course. Guarding the medical supplies was fun, partly because it was daytime and pretty warm out, but also because the "terrorists" were so entertaining when they came to demand supplies and taunt us. Our roadblock was probably the worst, but only because we were so bad at it. We let a truck go through with a 9mm on the rearview mirror, a machete under the backseat and another large knife hidden in a woman's bosom. Yeah. We were supposed to search there too, but I guess the boys were a little uncomfortable with that. Funny, I'm pretty darn sure they're comfortable with that sort of thing when they go out on the weekends.
One of the more annoying parts was how much we walked around to get to all the missions. There was usually at least a 2km walk there, and then back afterwards. We did 4 of these a day. Did I mention that our section was really bad at navigating and ended up having to walk way too far out of the way and back several times? I had blisters by Tuesday.
Wednesday night was probably the worst. We did a reconnaissance mission pretty much about as far away as it was possible to get. It was 4km there, then we met up with our guide who took us through swampy woods for another half hour, where most of the section had to wait kneeling in the mud while 5 of us took off most of our gear and went to sneak up to an enemy post and try to listen and gather info on when they would be attacking. Of course, we were lying in the mud too, but trying to be still and listening made it way more interesting than for the rest of the section, whose main concern was trying to stay awake. An hour later, we get back to them, and start walking back to camp. By the time we get there, the camp was already under a biological attack so we could not go near it and had to go back to the woods and find a place to hang out for a while until we were allowed back in. Did I mention the swamp? We were soaked and by that time it was 4am.
When we finally made it back into the camp, it was time to pack up and go. We had 15 minutes to do it or we would apparently be carrying our rucksacks back to the main base. We did it. Painfully, uncomfortably, and without breakfast, but we did it. Then waited around for 2 hours. That was cold. We wondered why we were waiting around doing nothing, but finally the attack came.
Oh right. The final attack. The time when we are sort of supposed to remember our drill and how to tell others where the enemies are, but really it's just an excuse to shoot as many rounds as possible. We were attacked by probably just about every one of the "enemies" that there were, and from every side. It was rather noisy. Needless to say, everyone had a lot of fun with that.
So like week 11, the main thing is that we survived. If there had been grades on it, we probably would have done pretty badly, since we let our sister platoon get up close to scout us and attack. Well, there was only 1 section in the whole place at the time, so it wasn't everyone, but still...the competition between the staff is just about as bad as the recruits, so we got a fair amount of hell for that. Also 7 negligent discharges with our rifles which is way off the scale as far as the number that's "ok"...not that any are really ok, since when we have live rounds that aren't blanks, the consequences can be a lot more serious, but they usually expect 1 or 2 on a platoon. People make mistakes and now is the time to make them, but 7...well, it's ridiculous. So we got a lot of hell for that too. I guess it's a good thing there weren't marks for it. But again, we made it, and it's over. It was a good experience and it's way easier to say that now that it's done, but it's true. We all did things we didn't know we could, and dealt with new situations under demanding conditions. Again there were no fistfights between recruits, so that's a plus. Apparently it came close once or twice.
But we're back on base, and getting some rest. Well, some of us are. Some others are getting just as little rest, but enjoying some freedom. Freedom to get drunk and party. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's now officially grad week and there are only a few days left here for everyone. One last kick at the can, then we all go our separate ways. It's been interesting, that's for sure, and there's definitely people I'm going to miss, but man are we looking forward to getting out of here!
...Except actually I am out of "here" as of right now. I'll post another couple about grad week and leaving later, but just so you know...I'm at the airport on my way to my posting. Woot!
Sunday, March 21, 2010
One week left...
Well since I am still alive enough to write this, you would be correct in assuming I made it through sleep deprivation week without turning into a zombie. Although I will admit that near the end of the week there were a few times that I was pretty close to being the walking dead. But I'll start at the beginning.
Monday was kind of neat. We arrived, marched to our bivouac and set up our perimeter defense. No we did not set up camp, we just put our rucksacks down in our designated positions, then ate lunch and had some classes. All our classes were outside of course, and the first one was on pyrotechnics. We'd already had the class back at the school, but this one was for the demonstrations. We got some bangs and booms and flashes and tripwires - just a small taste of what was in store to wake us up at random times throughout the week.
After a bunch more walking around and some more classes, we got back to the bivouac after dark to set up camp. That was fun. There was only minor difficulties and minimal complaining. In comparison to a squad of high school cheerleaders. I love it when our staff makes things far more difficult than they need to be.
I have no idea when or how many times we got woken up that night, but later on, I counted myself lucky that I got that hour and a half of sleep.
We took down the tents in the morning before setting out for some more walking and classes. This would set the standard for the week, which we were really impressed with. Tuesday was a cool day though. It was the first time we got to put the cam paint on, and also got our pictures taken. We also practiced trying to see things in the woods that were more or less hidden alongside a stretch of the road. Then one of our instructors hid there in a gilly suit (makes him look like cousin Itt or a pile a leaves) and shot at us until we could see him. It took a surprisingly long time considering how close he was. When he stood up, all I could think about was the Monty Python sketch of "How Not to be Seen." of which the first rule is "Don't Stand Up." It became extremely obvious why that is the first rule.
Wednesday was topography. That was a fun day, since the weather was nice, and we were all sent off alone into the woods to plot our paths and find our markers. A whole day of no one yelling at us, or telling us to go faster. A whole day of wandering about in the woods. We had a whole hour to make and eat our lunch, which was hot for once, and if we were tired, we could just sit and take a break. It was that day that I realized that no matter what we did in the day, we got far more rest in the hours the sun was out than any night. It was a bit bizarre.
Things get a little blurry after that. I think I got 45 minutes of sleep one night, none the next, and 20 minutes the night after. That might sound crazy, but the even crazier part is that we kept functioning. Well, except classes where we sat down. I tended to start nodding off a little bit there. But every night we were woken up by fire alarms, or artysims (they make a bit flash and boom to simulate artillary - REALLY loud) or an "attack" on the camp. Every time we had to yell "Stand to!" until everyone was awake and at their post. Then wait for it to be clear, go out on the road and clear our weapons and come back into camp. Every one takes about a half hour. It doesn't seem like a long time, but when you add it to the two hours of duty (like being on watch) that you have sometime between 11 and 5, the time it takes to change or clean the rifle (which is higher on the priority list than food, which is higher than sleep...) it adds up to a whole lot of no sleep for recruits. So you might see why my memory of these times is not wholly intact.
All I remember of the last part is being very close to crying and giving up. I guess it was Thursday night when we had a class about different kinds of missions and "Pull Pole" was one of them. It involves being found by the enemy and needing to take down the camp as fast as possible - ideally in less than 20 minutes. Of course, as soon as we heard it, we knew what was going on in our last night.
It was about 3am when we got the call, took down the camp, packed our rucksacks and met up on the road. Since the general idea was that we were supposed to be moving camp, we took our loaded rucksacks with us. It was a long walk with probably 50 to 60 pounds on our backs, and we never reached our destination. After a few kilometers, we came under fire, and dropped our rucks and headed into the woods to deal wtih the "enemy". Since this meant that our route was "compromised", we had to set up camp somewhere else, and headed back the way we came for a km or so. Then we wandered into the woods to scout where our camp would be. It was at this point that I fell down and just could not get back up. I felt weak and about as terrible as I ever have been in the past few years, and would not have gotten back up without an awesome friend there to give me a hand up. That's the good thing about all this. We all know that there is someone there if we need it, because it's the only way we can make it through this craziness.
The day did get better from there, and not only because it could not have gotten worse! We were given three whole hours on our own to make "hoochies" (little tents out of our groundsheets) and eat breakfast and rest if we wanted to. The sun started to come up and our spirits rose with it. It was our last few hours there, no one had to be on duty and the staff were gone. It started to warm up, and people were singing. It sounds corny, but yes, this actually happened. And because we were in a better mood, the tiredness took on a different form and absolutely everything became hilarious. A think all of us laughed more in two hours than we did the rest of the week.
And so, we survived. A little worse for wear, and slightly paranoid about a certain descending whistling noise that the artysims made, but we all made it back. We didn't lose any people to injuries, and no one actually got into a fight, so I consider that a success. Apparently so does our sergeant, because he said that anyone who can make it through the week 11 that he puts us through has his respect. And for once, I think he wasn't being sarcastic. The other platoons had it far easier, with more sleep, and fewer attacks that happened at more convenient hours. Fewer long marches too. Not that we're bitter. We were at the time, but now that it's done, well....we made it and that's what counts.
As for the next week...well, what part of the weekend we didn't spend sleeping or drinking, most people spent speculating on whether week 12 would be harder or easier than week 11. Stay tuned to find out!
Monday was kind of neat. We arrived, marched to our bivouac and set up our perimeter defense. No we did not set up camp, we just put our rucksacks down in our designated positions, then ate lunch and had some classes. All our classes were outside of course, and the first one was on pyrotechnics. We'd already had the class back at the school, but this one was for the demonstrations. We got some bangs and booms and flashes and tripwires - just a small taste of what was in store to wake us up at random times throughout the week.
After a bunch more walking around and some more classes, we got back to the bivouac after dark to set up camp. That was fun. There was only minor difficulties and minimal complaining. In comparison to a squad of high school cheerleaders. I love it when our staff makes things far more difficult than they need to be.
I have no idea when or how many times we got woken up that night, but later on, I counted myself lucky that I got that hour and a half of sleep.
We took down the tents in the morning before setting out for some more walking and classes. This would set the standard for the week, which we were really impressed with. Tuesday was a cool day though. It was the first time we got to put the cam paint on, and also got our pictures taken. We also practiced trying to see things in the woods that were more or less hidden alongside a stretch of the road. Then one of our instructors hid there in a gilly suit (makes him look like cousin Itt or a pile a leaves) and shot at us until we could see him. It took a surprisingly long time considering how close he was. When he stood up, all I could think about was the Monty Python sketch of "How Not to be Seen." of which the first rule is "Don't Stand Up." It became extremely obvious why that is the first rule.
Wednesday was topography. That was a fun day, since the weather was nice, and we were all sent off alone into the woods to plot our paths and find our markers. A whole day of no one yelling at us, or telling us to go faster. A whole day of wandering about in the woods. We had a whole hour to make and eat our lunch, which was hot for once, and if we were tired, we could just sit and take a break. It was that day that I realized that no matter what we did in the day, we got far more rest in the hours the sun was out than any night. It was a bit bizarre.
Things get a little blurry after that. I think I got 45 minutes of sleep one night, none the next, and 20 minutes the night after. That might sound crazy, but the even crazier part is that we kept functioning. Well, except classes where we sat down. I tended to start nodding off a little bit there. But every night we were woken up by fire alarms, or artysims (they make a bit flash and boom to simulate artillary - REALLY loud) or an "attack" on the camp. Every time we had to yell "Stand to!" until everyone was awake and at their post. Then wait for it to be clear, go out on the road and clear our weapons and come back into camp. Every one takes about a half hour. It doesn't seem like a long time, but when you add it to the two hours of duty (like being on watch) that you have sometime between 11 and 5, the time it takes to change or clean the rifle (which is higher on the priority list than food, which is higher than sleep...) it adds up to a whole lot of no sleep for recruits. So you might see why my memory of these times is not wholly intact.
All I remember of the last part is being very close to crying and giving up. I guess it was Thursday night when we had a class about different kinds of missions and "Pull Pole" was one of them. It involves being found by the enemy and needing to take down the camp as fast as possible - ideally in less than 20 minutes. Of course, as soon as we heard it, we knew what was going on in our last night.
It was about 3am when we got the call, took down the camp, packed our rucksacks and met up on the road. Since the general idea was that we were supposed to be moving camp, we took our loaded rucksacks with us. It was a long walk with probably 50 to 60 pounds on our backs, and we never reached our destination. After a few kilometers, we came under fire, and dropped our rucks and headed into the woods to deal wtih the "enemy". Since this meant that our route was "compromised", we had to set up camp somewhere else, and headed back the way we came for a km or so. Then we wandered into the woods to scout where our camp would be. It was at this point that I fell down and just could not get back up. I felt weak and about as terrible as I ever have been in the past few years, and would not have gotten back up without an awesome friend there to give me a hand up. That's the good thing about all this. We all know that there is someone there if we need it, because it's the only way we can make it through this craziness.
The day did get better from there, and not only because it could not have gotten worse! We were given three whole hours on our own to make "hoochies" (little tents out of our groundsheets) and eat breakfast and rest if we wanted to. The sun started to come up and our spirits rose with it. It was our last few hours there, no one had to be on duty and the staff were gone. It started to warm up, and people were singing. It sounds corny, but yes, this actually happened. And because we were in a better mood, the tiredness took on a different form and absolutely everything became hilarious. A think all of us laughed more in two hours than we did the rest of the week.
And so, we survived. A little worse for wear, and slightly paranoid about a certain descending whistling noise that the artysims made, but we all made it back. We didn't lose any people to injuries, and no one actually got into a fight, so I consider that a success. Apparently so does our sergeant, because he said that anyone who can make it through the week 11 that he puts us through has his respect. And for once, I think he wasn't being sarcastic. The other platoons had it far easier, with more sleep, and fewer attacks that happened at more convenient hours. Fewer long marches too. Not that we're bitter. We were at the time, but now that it's done, well....we made it and that's what counts.
As for the next week...well, what part of the weekend we didn't spend sleeping or drinking, most people spent speculating on whether week 12 would be harder or easier than week 11. Stay tuned to find out!
Friday, March 19, 2010
I made it! Now for grad week.
I would write more, but there are alcoholic beverages to consume and dances to dance.
Roger. Out.
Roger. Out.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Getting ready...
Or at least as ready as we can be. No one really knows what to expect next week, so there's all sorts of speculation going on. We know we won't get much sleep, and some of the activities we'll be doing, but not much more than that. One thing that's cool is that even though we'll have some of the instructors against us, we'll have our section commanders with us. That's kind of a relief, since I had been thinking it was all of them pulling stunts on us and expecting us to deal. It'll still be interesting, but no quite so bad as I thought.
I'm looking forward to a lot of the activities this week. Topography, where we get dropped off in the middle of nowhere alone and have to navigate the course. There's a night one too, but we're not alone for that. Another round of the obstacle course will be fun in better weather this time, and the rappel tower should be good too. We'll see how good I feel when I get back!
All you people back home can sit back in your shorts and just imagine me outside and how grateful I am for the 5 degree weather and that the snow and mud is mostly gone. I'll send you a "wish you were here" card.
And you can wish me luck!
I'm looking forward to a lot of the activities this week. Topography, where we get dropped off in the middle of nowhere alone and have to navigate the course. There's a night one too, but we're not alone for that. Another round of the obstacle course will be fun in better weather this time, and the rappel tower should be good too. We'll see how good I feel when I get back!
All you people back home can sit back in your shorts and just imagine me outside and how grateful I am for the 5 degree weather and that the snow and mud is mostly gone. I'll send you a "wish you were here" card.
And you can wish me luck!
Saturday, March 6, 2010
She's alive!
No really, I am! There was some concern for a while as to whether I was actually turning into a zombie, but the danger is temporarily past. Of course, next week is another story.
What am I referring to? Why, the madness known as Farnham of course. It is where we go to do our field training. You know, camping and going to the range and stuff. Sounds like fun, eh? Actually it is. Fun like an amusement park ride called the meat grinder.
I'm sure with most platoons, it's not quite so bad. They didn't get a lot of the more "interesting" things that we did. I heard that some of the other people that were there at the same time actually got something like 6-8 hours of sleep a night. For us it was more like 3-4. And it wasn't even sleep deprivation week. That's what's coming up starting Monday.
No, despite sitting around outside in the sleet for 12 hours and then running a couple kilometers with our rucksacks on, it wasn't so bad. Despite being woken up in the middle of the night by "fire alarms" and "first aid scenarios" that involved carrying people around the campsite for a half hour or surprise topography practice at midnight, it was actually alright. After all that, the 13 km ruck march on Friday was a piece of cake. We decided at the end of the week that...you know, it hadn't really been all that terrible. Sure it was hard. Sure we didn't really like a lot of it while it was happening, but once it was over...well, all that was left was to brag to the other platoons about it!
The only really unfortunate part about the whole thing was the number of people that got injured. 2 had to leave the platoon and at least 5 others couldn't take part in a lot of the activities since then, and some still might not finish with us because of it. Of course, the rucksack running is very much against the rules so if anyone going to basic is reading this and worrying - don't. Our sergeant is a little crazy and doesn't really care if he gets in trouble. Which he supposedly is, so this next week is either going to be slightly less unmanageable than we expected, or we are going to experience an as yet undiscovered circle of hell.
But in other ways we really did have a good time. It was cool to get to know our instructors out in the field, and we could tell that they were having more fun, and talking to us differently. Not when they were giving us hell of course. But other times, like out practicing topography, or learning hand signals and section movements. We did a lot of neat things, and of course the obstacle course was fun. And we definitely left with a feeling of accomplishment - at least for the 5 minutes it took everyone to fall asleep on the bus ride back.
So what have I been doing since then? Honestly, not a heck of a lot. Week 10 has been really slack, with a lot of annoying little things that just need to get done. Needles and the barber and such. We found out our next postings, which was cool, and had a couple of classes.
Wait, how could I have forgotten the gas hut?? The first three days of this week were straight classes on gas attacks, and how to put on the mask and suit quickly and things like that. It was pretty fun, but weird to be sitting down all day after week 9. A lot of people were worried about actually going into the gas hut (yes they actually gas us with "CS gas" which basically makes your eyes and lungs burn and your nose run if you get any), but everybody passed and only one person actually panicked, but then made it on the next try. Some people had pretty red faces when we finished though. I think it was harder on the tall people - they get more gas first! I was fine, didn't get any in my mask, but had to hold my breath a reeeaallly long time while I changed canisters and had trouble getting getting the threads in line while screwing it on with my eyes closed.
Yup! It was fun stuff. We all felt disgusting afterwards though, with "decontamination lotion" (basically olive oil) all over our faces and hands and heads and sitting in our suits and gas masks for a couple of hours. I can count on one hand the times I have wanted a shower more than after that. Funny, most of the other ones happened here too.
Oh well, on goes the battle! Obviously I'll be gone next week. I may try for another update tomorrow, but if not, it'll be next weekend, if I am still alive and un-undead. I may just turn into a ravening monster instead, as people who have lived with me and seen me in the morning may well remember and fear.
We shall see.
What am I referring to? Why, the madness known as Farnham of course. It is where we go to do our field training. You know, camping and going to the range and stuff. Sounds like fun, eh? Actually it is. Fun like an amusement park ride called the meat grinder.
I'm sure with most platoons, it's not quite so bad. They didn't get a lot of the more "interesting" things that we did. I heard that some of the other people that were there at the same time actually got something like 6-8 hours of sleep a night. For us it was more like 3-4. And it wasn't even sleep deprivation week. That's what's coming up starting Monday.
No, despite sitting around outside in the sleet for 12 hours and then running a couple kilometers with our rucksacks on, it wasn't so bad. Despite being woken up in the middle of the night by "fire alarms" and "first aid scenarios" that involved carrying people around the campsite for a half hour or surprise topography practice at midnight, it was actually alright. After all that, the 13 km ruck march on Friday was a piece of cake. We decided at the end of the week that...you know, it hadn't really been all that terrible. Sure it was hard. Sure we didn't really like a lot of it while it was happening, but once it was over...well, all that was left was to brag to the other platoons about it!
The only really unfortunate part about the whole thing was the number of people that got injured. 2 had to leave the platoon and at least 5 others couldn't take part in a lot of the activities since then, and some still might not finish with us because of it. Of course, the rucksack running is very much against the rules so if anyone going to basic is reading this and worrying - don't. Our sergeant is a little crazy and doesn't really care if he gets in trouble. Which he supposedly is, so this next week is either going to be slightly less unmanageable than we expected, or we are going to experience an as yet undiscovered circle of hell.
But in other ways we really did have a good time. It was cool to get to know our instructors out in the field, and we could tell that they were having more fun, and talking to us differently. Not when they were giving us hell of course. But other times, like out practicing topography, or learning hand signals and section movements. We did a lot of neat things, and of course the obstacle course was fun. And we definitely left with a feeling of accomplishment - at least for the 5 minutes it took everyone to fall asleep on the bus ride back.
So what have I been doing since then? Honestly, not a heck of a lot. Week 10 has been really slack, with a lot of annoying little things that just need to get done. Needles and the barber and such. We found out our next postings, which was cool, and had a couple of classes.
Wait, how could I have forgotten the gas hut?? The first three days of this week were straight classes on gas attacks, and how to put on the mask and suit quickly and things like that. It was pretty fun, but weird to be sitting down all day after week 9. A lot of people were worried about actually going into the gas hut (yes they actually gas us with "CS gas" which basically makes your eyes and lungs burn and your nose run if you get any), but everybody passed and only one person actually panicked, but then made it on the next try. Some people had pretty red faces when we finished though. I think it was harder on the tall people - they get more gas first! I was fine, didn't get any in my mask, but had to hold my breath a reeeaallly long time while I changed canisters and had trouble getting getting the threads in line while screwing it on with my eyes closed.
Yup! It was fun stuff. We all felt disgusting afterwards though, with "decontamination lotion" (basically olive oil) all over our faces and hands and heads and sitting in our suits and gas masks for a couple of hours. I can count on one hand the times I have wanted a shower more than after that. Funny, most of the other ones happened here too.
Oh well, on goes the battle! Obviously I'll be gone next week. I may try for another update tomorrow, but if not, it'll be next weekend, if I am still alive and un-undead. I may just turn into a ravening monster instead, as people who have lived with me and seen me in the morning may well remember and fear.
We shall see.
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