Day 45

Day 40 of BCT

     The day started a little rough. No one knew that we were supposed to pull security as soon as we woke up. So most of us were completing personal hygiene and the DS's were yelling at us. We threw on our full battle rattle and got in position on the perimeter. Some of the DS's actually started to fire on us (with blanks). Everyone was unsure if we were supposed to fire back or not (no one wants an Article 15 for a negligent discharge), but eventually, we all started to fire. I fired at the muzzle flash right in front of me, but apparently some just fired because everyone else fired. The DS's weren't too thrilled at our sub-standard performance.
      We finished getting ready and formed up, but of course some in our platoon didn't move fast enough and the rest of us got to wait in the front leaning rest position with full gear on. I about died. My arms burned so bad I could only hold it for a few seconds before collapsing and having to get back up.
      We had the usual Hot-A breakfast. I'm so tired of the same food that I couldn't even bring myself to eat it. I ate my orange and that was it.
     We then marched to an urban combat training site. Basically, it had buildings to practice clearing, and a lane that looked similar to a street with cars and calls to practice moving as a team while under fire to reach a target. Our platoon spent the entire morning at the same station-clearing a room. We got lots of practice, that's for sure. The temperature climbed to over 80 degrees, so we were all very warm in our gear. It was really hard to stay motivated, but the battalion commander was out watching us so the DS's were really pushing to keep us all practicing. It felt like the morning would never end.
      We changed station before lunch and wet to the team movement lane. I got chosen to be Op 4 and they put a shirt on my head and sent me to the other end to be the enemy and shoot at the teams headed my way. It was fun until they forgot about us and headed to chow without us. LOL. We had to march a fair bit to chow, which wasn't fun in the heat and on a sandy road, but chow was good since I hadn't had much breakfast and it was almost 1400.
      After chow our DS let us sit in the shade for a bit before we started back to what we were doing before chow. We didn't do Op 4 this time. Only a few in our platoon got a turn before we moved to the next station. There we were to practice clearing a whole house. Again time ran out, and only 2 squads actually got to go through the drill. We then packed up the gear and marched back to the FOB (Forward Operating Base, aka. our campsite). Chow was spaghetti, one thing I do still like.
     We then learned we were going to be pulling a nighttime security drill. We worked on getting packed up for training in the morning, including the beg tent that held the DS gear and training gear. Then we had the fun of laying in the prone supported position, waiting on the enemy. We had few "attacks" so it was really hard to stay awake for about 2 or 3 hours. We then got to go to bed after an AAR (After Action Report) where they told us what we did right and what went wrong.
     I had thought I  would have first Fireguard shift alphabetically, but I guess the DS switched me to the middle of the night since I didn't have it last night. I little frustrating, but oh well - 0200-0300 - isn't the worst shift. Fireguard in the field is least fun because you have nothing to do but walk around and watch the perimeter. At least in the bay, you have cleaning to make the time go by faster. I was glad to walk someone to the latrine, just of something to do!