- 0700 - Breakfast, no problems
- 0750 - Formation outside, chilly but otherwise ok
- 0800-1130 - IED brief. Plain awful. A former Marine would talk for 10 minutes from the Powerpoint slide and then put us on a 20 minute break.
- 1130-1210 - Brief on something. I honestly don't remember.
- 1210-1245 - Lunch. Needless to say, we're supposed to have an hour for lunch. However, once you stand in line for 15 minutes, and you have to be outside with your body armor donned, you end up not getting to finish your lunch after all. Oh yes, and then people yell and get bent out of shape when people show up late.
- 1300-1700 - Outdoor activities. I need to address this more.
This afternoon we took a bus 0.5 miles away and each of the four platoons was assigned a different activity. After about 45 minutes or an hour, we'd rotate. We were to start on the convoy training station. However, once we arrived, the Army changed its mind. We moved to the simulator building first. The first part of the simulation was neat. We were shooting a 9mm (shoots digital bullets) at a screen in dusk conditions as a black target. I actually hit the target 7 out of 7 times, but all 7 shots were in his right arm. So he'd have no arm, but he might still be alive. Oh well. However, after that simulation we moved to the second, which used the M4 rifle. In groups of 5, we were shown a situation video, and we had to shoot the threat when it presented itself. However, the first scenario didn't require any shooting at all! And then the instructor kept asking which of us was "commando", so I told him we were all Special Forces. Then he asked again, "which of you are commando?" So I replied, yes, I am not wearing underwear today. I was really scratching my head, trying to figure out what he was talking about. Eventually it came out that he believes "commando" means the same thing as "mando", as in mandatory. A handful of us are required to qualify on the 9mm, and we are the group to which he was referring. But then he got up on a soapbox about this training and how to load a weapon, etc. We stopped short of pointing out that we'd already been to the range and shot these weapons. But it gets better.
The convoy training was fine, if not simplistic. That station was nice because the Drill Sergeant said we could take off the body armor if we wanted to, because this station was all lecture. Great! So I, along with about 4 other people took it off. Ok. I glanced over and we could see the next station from where we sat, and they were not wearing the body armor, so that was more good news.
So when it was time to rotate to the next station, I carried my body armor over, but didn't not put it on. However, we were then fussed at to stand in tight formation, and wear the armor. I objected, and pointed out that it would be pointless to put it on because we were about to take it off. Didn't make any sense to me. I can't actually remember whether I put it on or not, because I was so frustrated. So then everyone took off the armor and had to place everything very neatly and orderly on the ground. This, before we crawled and rolled around the ground practicing low crawls and medium crawls. Asinine.
The last of the four stations was the sleeping station. We just sat there and did nothing. In the end, we only needed the body armor for the one indoor simulation stations. Ahhhh!
All in all, a good use of our time. Please watch out for the sarcasm forming a puddle at my feet.
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