Blue Phase Day

March 14, 2009
Dear All:
0405: Yes, I’m picking this letter up again, but I’m sure I’ll have time to finally finish it – we just “phased” into Blue Phase the final 3 weeks of Basic, and cheered Alpha Company home last night as they returned from FTX3 – again, another story.
But, since this is taking a week to write, a lot has happened. That’s the thing I’ve noticed the most. Nothing has been so stressful or physically demanding to break anyone yet – I actually feel like I’ve been able to thrive in the pace and pressure – but we sure do know how to cram a lot of shit into our 17-hour work days.
Monday was another PT test. Unfortunately, no one felt as if they were prepared (physical training took a back seat to marksmanship and it felt like we hadn’t really done anything in 3 weeks). But I still improved with a 67 push-ups, 62 sit-ups, and a 2-mile in 13:58. That puts the perfect score of 75, 80, & 13:00 (respectively) well within my sights and gave me the highest point total of my platoon. The rest of the day was spent prepping for FTX 2. While most of the guys were complaining about how much they had to carry (especially Ehlers, a construction worker from NY who is unusually put out by pretty much everything and uses the “F” word to prove it). There are actually a few guys from NYC including Alfonzo, a great guy and one of our squad leaders – every day begins with his Brooklyn accent yelling “Let’s go first squad!” – he actually saw the 2nd plane hit the WTC from his apartment. Mungo and I were busy in the “War Room” scheming. We had to draw up, plot out, and plan the operations for setting up and manning our patrol base for our 2nd field training exercise (FTX). It was to be our first overnight event, and I was just glad it was starting to get warm. Plus, playing Platoon was cool too, as I drew up charts and maps and diagrams.
We woke up Tuesday morning, brought our rucks down (a good 70+ pounds with our body armor inside) and sat on the ground to eat MRE’s for breakfast. Then we took the hour bus ride out to the middle of nowhere (in the dark) and started marching out to our scouted area. The patrol base is essentially a triangle made out of soldiers who pull security while a squad or platoon rests, performs maintenance and continues to move towards its objective. The PG, APG, Radio man and Medic all remain in the middle. In reality, it was an exercise in keeping people awake, quiet, and down.
There were risks involved. We sat up in some dense bush with downed trees for cover. But that set us up for the wonders of Georgian wildlife – including wolf spiders as big as my hand, fire ants, and a black widow that was well over a half-dollar in size. Luckily we go to sleep on the ground (note the sarcasm.) The few hours I did sleep were spend fully clothed with layers on the ground and encased in my sleeping bag. We had to set up 2-man hoodies earlier that day, so we had some cover – but it was still nice to get home.
Of course, to be allowed home we had to complete ambush drills, receive and break contact, and squad attack movements (we’re definitely in a tactile mode now). But, after eating MRE’s and rucking up the “highway to hell” back to our buses, we were allowed to leave. Another major checkpoint complete. And we all had to show for it was exhaustion (from the late night land navigation and the 50% overnight security detail), soreness from our rucks, and the random case of poison ivy and a flu bug that put 4 in the infirmary this week. All in all, pretty successful. I will say this: marching through the woods with an M-16 beats the hell out of sitting in class.
0805: I just got back from the best breakfast chow I’ve had yet. Lil’ Rod (our guide-on who carries our platoon’s flag and consequently eats first) and myself (who eats second so that a PG is always with a portion of the troops) were treated to omelets. That’s right an omelet. With ham, cheese, onions, green peppers, tomatoes – the works. I’ve literally eaton scrambled eggs every day for the past 7 weeks, so it was a big deal. But I digress.
Thursday was spent with our first day of Urban Operations training. Mungo, Eissler (aka, Caption America – who ran the 2-mile in 11:30), Ayer (who was the only Titan to shoot Expert), and myself formed a super-team and spent the day busting down doors, clearing rooms, and learning the proper movements for approaching doors, walking down hallways, and other real-world scenarios. A lot of the footwork was awkward at first, but it reminded me of football practice – working together in a seamless flow – and I picked it up pretty quickly.
SIDENOTE: The first person to enter a room is either the youngest, or the lowest rank because they are the most expendable – there are little things like that that make all of our training a little more real and a little more serious.
Yesterday we phased. I’ve observed a pattern with Basic that every time we approach a new phase, our Drill Sergeants switch back from Dr. Jekyll to Mr. Hyde (or the other way around, whichever’s worse). Thursday night we had our “hydration formation” at 1900 and we got smoked until 1930. And I mean smoked. It was epic. 300 straight jumping jacks in our boots, followed by 20 minutes of “Up, Back, Go’s” The first whistle drops us into push-ups, the second flips us on our backs to do flutter kicks and the 3rd, running in place. Drill Sergeant Shepard (the most stereotypical DS in our company) ran it and loved every minute of it. At the end, you were left with 240 soldiers in sweat and a DS with a huge smile on his face.
That brought us into Blue Phase Day. And, as usual, we had something badass on the schedule: prepare yourself for this one…..yesterday I shot a grenade launcher and a rocket launcher!
We started with a block of instruction on the AT4, a single-use, anti-war, rocket launcher (feel free to Wikipedia it). Ours were rigged with a 9mm adapter that fed tracer rounds so that we could get used to the flight path. Then, the top 2 shooters in the company, both 40/40 Experts, were able to shoot live rockets. I’m not even going to try to describe what it was like to witness that.