Day 16

Day 10 of BCT
 
      Wake up was at 0500, and we had to have our gear packed and ready to go in about 20 minutes. Of course, it's the Army, so you hurry up, only to wait. I think we stood in formation for an hour, before marching out. We marched less than a milt to the gas chamber. Then they served breakfast and we spent another hour waiting. After giving us instructions and checking our masks, they filed us into the gas chamber. The purpose is to teach us to trust our equipment, and remain calm. We went in with our masks on, and then they had us do different breathing exercises. We were then all supposed to remove our mask, state our name and social, and put the mask back on and clear it. I lucked out and didn't have to remove my mask until the end. They then had us remove our masks in groups of then and made us wait to go outside until we had all breathed a good amount of  CS Gas. It didn't bother me too bad at first, but after several breaths it was pretty painful and my eyes burned and watered and my nose ran. We walked out and walked back down the hill, flapping our arms to shake off the gas from our clothes. It took a few minutes, but eventually I felt normal again.
      We then marched uphill and back to our company area where we changed clothes and ate lunch. After lunch was a trip to the PX. I had to buy new leather gloves, since I lost one last week. I was sent to a different store first to get the gloves, before being taken to the PX. The PX we use is small and basically only carries the essentials we are allowed to have. Before we could check out though, our DS's checked that we didn't have anything not allowed.
      After the PX, we spent the afternoon cleaning our gas mask and getting our Kevlar helmets fixed. We then had chow, platoon time, hydration formation and sleep!