Ups and Downs

Dear All,
It’s now 0410 on what is now 24 Feb. 09, my birthday, and I am celebrating with a fire guard shift. Today was a good day for me, and an interesting one for the Titans. We rucked again today (all in preparation for our final, 13 mile road march that happens just before graduation). It was a cold morning, but since we’ve moved into “White Phase” now, the Drill Sergeants are actually affording us creative comforts like being able to wear our field jackets and our PT beanies, that’s a far cry from the treatment we had during our first week when we went out to the gas chamber on the coldest day of the year in Columbus where the only way we were able to warm ourselves was by getting smoked for not forming up correctly.
The reason we marched today was to reach the site of our FTX 1 (our first field exercise). Wakeup was at 0500 with formation at 0520. As usual, we didn’t get breakfast until we completed the 3+ mile trip. But, fortunately, our platoon is on duty squad this week – which means they are responsible for setting up equipment and chow when we travel away from our company. Even though this is extra work to coordinate for me, it guarantees I’ll get huge servings in the chow line!
After eating in the cold we moved onto our site where we would spend the day hiking through the woods of southwestern Georgia scouting out and setting up our triangular shaped patrol bases. Most of us will never see this stuff again since our company is non-infantry, but it’s interesting and fun to practice regardless. As I was ordering the 3 squads around just after we had finished our MRE’s for lunch (I had cheese tortellini – solid), I couldn’t help but think about how satisfied I felt doing this and that if I weren’t here I’d probably be in my last semester sitting in a class like Secured Transactions – I think I made the right choice.
I won’t go as far as to say we looked like Green Berets out there today (there are a surprising number of soldiers hesitant to get themselves dirty), but it was a good experience. The march back, however, was not. We road march in a staggered column at 5 meter intervals (so there are two rows on either side of the road with a man every 15 feet). If they keep their spacing it’s easy because the pace remains steady. As APG I walk down the middle and patrol the last third of our platoon. But today everyone was tired and in a hurry to get back – combine that with the fact that our Platoon was leading the company home (with our Drill Sergeants wanting to set a breakneck pace) and you ended up with us, wearing 40 lb. rucks, sprinting half-mile sections at a time to keep up. It’s no coincidence there are over 15 of them going to sick call today for their feet – or that I had to carry 2 rucks the last mile to aid a fallen solider.
But there are ups and downs. No one minded the march when we learned they were serving cake at dinner to anyone who didn’t fall out.
And so that will be my schedule for the rest of Basic Training: Wakeup, train, chow, train, chow, train, chow, mail call, personal time, lights out, and repeat.
Outside the military, I hope everything is going well. When I woke up this morning, I had no idea it was my birthday – all I could think about was how sore I was from the March. 11 of our platoon went to sick call today and two came back on crutches. What made it better was sprinting hills with Alpha group at 0530 during our Ability Group Run. Alpha is the best group and we maintained a 6:50 pace for roughly 4 miles. Needless to say the hot shower was nice tonight – even if it only lasted 3 minutes. Tomorrow we head out to the range all day to finalize our “zeros” before we begin our qualifying shoots with our M-16s. That’s an eliminator and we need to hit 23 of 40 targets to qualify – wish me luck!
Anyway, I’ll end this now so that I can get to sleep on time, but I’ll write again soon. I hope everything is going well. I did find out some info about leave: there are 15 OCS candidates in my company – 14 in 1st platoon and myself in the 2nd. I talked to some of them today and they said our class won’t start until the 27th and that I get leave. They also said we can have cell phones and laptops but that’s not confirmed. Hope the weather is getting warmer, but either way, don’t take your heat or your car for granted!
Love, Nick
PS – For all of those who are reading along with my adventures, I wanted to let you know that I am writing these letters to Matt and he is posting them for me. I have no access to computers or email – so if you want to send your thoughts and comments feel free to write a letter and mail them to me! My mailing address can be found at the bottom of my blog.