Day 12

Day 6 of BCT

     Today was quite a bit harder. All of the cadre ended up with a meeting, so we got a little bit of extra time this morning before more PT instruction. I try to avoid standing in the front two rows of the formation so I won't have to kneel. Kneeling on asphalt has my knees so stiff and sore. We lucked out and didn't have to actually do PT.
     We then changed into ACU's and grabbed our assault bags. We then marched to another site where we took a survey on our soldier readiness. I had already done this at home, so I lucked out and had a few extra minutes to eat breakfast, another first. We then stood in formation studying while waiting on everyone to finish the survey. Of course, some people could not keep their hands out of the their pockets or stand still at the position of attention, so we got a "smoking".
      We then marched to the Fit to Win course. It is basically an obstacle course that you complete as a team. From jumping over 4 and 5 foot walls, to climbing through tunnels, side-stepping through a maze, walking a beam, high stepping over beams, and low crawling through a pit. I felt bad for my team, because I was by far the slowest one. They were very encouraging through it all and helped me finish. I was covered in mud and exhausted when it was over, but relieved that I made it.
      We then marched back and had a briefing with our Battalion Commander and Command  Sergeant Major. Unfortunately, we had some people fall asleep during his briefing and we were all rushed outside where I was sure we would be in for a nasty "smoking". Instead we just sat outside for the briefing.
     We then had chow and went to our platoon bay to be fitted for our gas mask. We will be going to the gas chamber next week! Lucky for us, we were on the good side of our DS(maybe because our platoon's team won 2nd in the Fit to Win competition) and she let us have over an hour of personal time. Yay for a shower!
     We then had Hydration Formation and lights out. Our DS require our platoon to do 60 sit-ups and 60 pushups each night. Since I had 3rd fire guard shift, I stayed up and completed those while catching up on my journal.