Day 64

Day 59 of BCT

They woke us up at 0445 to guard the perimeter and then conduct personal hygiene. They really only give you time to quickly brush your teeth. I'm glad I'm not a male who has to shave everyday out in the field!
We marched back up to the FOB and spent time waiting again. It gave me a chance to read my letters from home that I got the night before. We then had a detail to move some stuff around, loaded all of the rucksacks on trucks, and had a Hot-A breakfast. I couldn't eat much , my stomach was so nauseous.  We packed up chow and then marched a mile or 2? to a paved road where the buses picked us up.
We went to MOUT city, a pretend city made out of storage trailers with doors and windows cut out. Our mission was to clear the city and search for a suspect who was accused of killing an American soldier. We were also to run security checkpoints and not allow anyone in or out of the area.
We had another "yummy" Hot-A for breakfast (with a light shower of rain in the middle of eating) before they split us up into our training areas. I lucked out and got to be OP4 all morning, pretending to be a villager approaching a checkpoint ran by another platoon. It was a lot of fun and I used my Spanish to avoid speaking English. We ran multiple scenarios, but the main goal was to train when a threat requires firing and how to avoid an escalation of force and controlling a hostile situation.
After an MRE, our platoon then ran a security checkpoint. We missed out on helping to clear the city and it was a rather boring afternoon doing the same thing we had done the day before. I jumped at the chance to go on a detail when our DS requested volunteers. Our job was loading the ruck sacks. We had to bring all of the rucks out to the field since there was no one to stay at the FOB with them and it takes 2 loads to move them all. So a lot of loading and unloading. We also were changing FOB locations so they had to be moved.
We then had to load everyone's IBAs (plated vests) in preparation for our 10 mile march. (So glad we didn't have to wear the vest for the march!) We ate another MRE and started our march around 8pm. And much to my dismay, the march was on sandy, sandy roads. They said we would have drills along the way, where we might be attacked, etc., but it never happened. We stopped quite a bit the first few miles and it felt like we had gone a long ways, only to find out we had only gone about 3 miles. I had my assult bag situated well, with the waist belt putting the bulk of the weight on my hips instead of my shoulders, so it didn't bother me like it had on previous marches. Around 3 miles in they gave us a granola bar to eat. I was between two of the nicer guys in my platoon, and they were very encouraging during the march. It was dark the whole time and I found myslef zoneing out a lot, methodically pushing on. As long as I kept the same pace and zoned out I was keeping up just fine. I was terrified of falling out, so somehow I kept going. The first 4 miles weren't bad, and I actually kind of enjoyed it, being such nice weather, but then my knees and feet started to hurt and each mile was progressively worse. They tormented us by marching us by our original FOB and we all thought we were done, only to march right on by. Then we readed a point and turned around and we all thought we would then be going back to the FOB, but instead we took a different turn and wandered deeper into the woods on yet another sandy trail. Just when I thought I had reached the end of my rope, they said we had arrived. What relief. I was in tears by this point, the pain was so bad.
We then had to move our rucksacks and set up a perimeter by platoon for sleeping (always a stressful task, especially in the pitch black dark) before we got to sleep a little. We only had to pull 10% security, so I just had a 45 minute shift in the wee hours of the morning. My knees were so stiff and swollen, painfull with each step I took, that all I wanted to do was sit and cry. But of course, that was not an option and I had to push through it. We slept from about 0200-0700.