This week was a bit of a doozy. We had some medical recertifications, learned how to use machine guns and Javelin missiles, drove tanks in full-sized simulators, and did a couple obstacle courses. Each of these took a full day from 5am until around 6pm when we would have a couple of hours to eat and get ready for the next day.
Starting last Friday, we had our 5 day Field Training Exercise, or FTX. For the first two days of the FTX, we learned about patrolling, basically how you live and conduct raids in places where the enemy might be. For the last 3 days, we lived in patrol bases, staying hidden while attacking and waiting to be attacked by a stand-in enemy. The worst part was pulling 2 hour security shifts in the middle of the night, with your exhausted brain convincing you that you’re being attacked. The best part was shooting the 800 remaining blank rounds (fake bullets that explode without shooting anything) we had for our machine gun on the last ambush.
When we finished, we got picked up by helicopters and then had a platoon on platoon (30 v. 30) submission grappling tournament. Showering and putting on clean clothes afterwards felt amazing.
Assorted pictures from the FTX. I’m in my platoon’s 4th squad, AKA Weapons Squad, so we got the carry around and use two huge machine guns and all of their associated gear and ammunition.
