OBLC- Week 4

What a great week!!! Monday morning bright and early we started FTX-1 (first week of Field Training Exercise). We drew M16 rifles from the armory during the early morning hours, then loaded buses and headed towards our home for the week- Fort Bullis. The FOB (Field Operating Base) at Fort Bullis is a training replica of a typical FOB (Forward Operating Base) found in the Army. In the FOB, we lived in 30 man/woman tents and learned basic Army skills. No showers, but we had porta-pots and a small personal hygiene area where the guys could shave and everyone could brush their teeth.

The weather was amazing for the first day and a half- low to mid-70s and clear skies. With such a strong aversion to cold weather, I was thankful for the happy weather! My luck ran out in the middle of day 2 however as a cold front rolled in and the sky started spitting icy raindrops on us as we stood around outside and learned how to assemble & disassemble M16 rifles and 9mm handguns. With a windchill in the 20s, I was amazed at my ability to remain positive and focused on the tasks at hand. Could it be a sign of maturity?! Nah, I think it's just that I like guns!

The sky finally cleared and we were left with cold, but dry days for the remainder of our time in the field. The first pic is of me at the top of a ridge after successfully finding my third point with only a compass, map & protractor during the land nav (navigation) test. As most of you know, I usually am unable to find my way out of even a parking lot, so I was a little concerned about my ability to pass land navigation. After a couple of hours of quality instruction though, I felt like I finally understood land nav and was absolutely giddy at my ability to "find myself" three times in the allotted time! I was starting to feel less apprehensive about the night land navigation test coming up at the end of the week.

Although I haven't been able to do it much since high school, I love to shoot and was excited about getting to fire the M16 and 9mm handgun during the week. Since I shot small bore .22 rifles on a team in high school, I always considered myself more of a rifle than handgun girl. My qualification time at both ranges proved me wrong however as I managed to qualify with the 9mm and not the M16. With so little hands on time before actually shooting though, I feel like a quality day at the range practicing would boost my rifle score significantly. No worries, it was fun to get to shoot and the experience served its purpose as weapon familiarization. I was disappointed that we couldn't spend more time shooting though.

It's no secret that I'm a chow hound! I love to eat! Hell, food is my chosen profession!!! While out in the field, we were served hot breakfast and dinner and only had to eat MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) once a day for lunch. If this is the Army's idea of roughing it, I'm in the right place!!! And man, have MREs come a long way since my time in the desert in the early 90s! They now have dozens of options and actually have heating packs in them so you can have a hot meal. These meals-in-a-bag are actually pretty tasty!

We learned lots of stuff during the week that I won't go into here. No need to tell the world what we're learning here other than the basics! Thursday night culminated into the night land navigation test. This group pic is of our platoon getting fired up before the night nav brief- you can see all the dust in the air from so many boots on the ground in the FOB! We were paired up and sent out into the dark, cold night to find 3 out of 4 points in the allotted time. I was nervous, but feeling pretty confident after my success during the day portion of land nav. After plotting our points and coming up with a game plan, my assigned partner and I headed into the dark, moonless night. An hour later, we found ourselves circling what we were confident were the coordinates we were supposed to be at looking for the marker. Another 20 Soldiers converged on our spot looking for the same marker to no avail. I was confident that we were within 10 meters of the location but was frustratingly unable to prove our location. With time clicking away, we replotted a course to our next location (the course is self-correcting so we were able to verify our current location) and moved on to our next destination. As I was on the ground working my map and protractor, I heard a familiar Cajun accent from over my shoulder. One of the other teams looking for the same point as us just happened to be from Louisiana! It's amazing how the only 3 Cajuns in the whole Company ended up stumbling upon each other in the middle of Texas woodlands! We joined forces and moved out towards our next common point.

As the night progressed, we ran into other teams who confirmed our suspicions- there was a disconnect between our score cards and the destination markers. I was disappointed that I wouldn't be able to verify my navigation skills, but the clear night and camaraderie seemed to dampen my frustration and made me appreciate the moment. Although I was freezing, it was a clear, beautiful night out in mother nature with a bunch of like-minded folks. The sky was chock full of stars and the certainty that all of humanity was under the same sky this night. For some reason, I was on point and shooting our azimuths to the next destinations for the rest of the night. At one point during the night, one of my fellow Cajuns shouted out to his partner in the dark "Can you believe we're being led through the woods by a Dietitian from Houma?!" Our evening wasn't a success on paper, but I was immensely satisfied with the knowledge that I always knew where we were. Even though the markers weren't where they were supposed to be, I was able to verify that we were always withing 10-20 meters of our destination. At no time did I not know where we were on the map or in which direction to head to get us back to the the FOB- it was a great, new feeling for me! Unfortunately, the evening didn't turn out so well for everyone. One Soldier had to be medevaced off the course with a broken leg and there were several twisted ankles during the night.

Overall, life in the FOB was pretty cushy. My battle-buddy, Goguen is in the picture with me. She too is former enlisted (Army though) and shares my upbeat attitude about the whole experience. Although we went without showers for 4 days, baby wipes are pretty efficient at keeping a 25-30 woman tent from reeking! I was grateful for my short hair as I watched other women struggling to manage their longer tresses. Between rolling around on the ground during combatives (hand to hand combat) and tromping through the woods, it was hard to keep dirt and critters from making a home on our scalps! Although a good taste of field life, 4 days in the field was in no way a hardship!

Our last day in the field ended with a fun day! We went out to the obstacle course and learned how to low & high crawl and did some 3-4 second rushes. Although we only did a short round of rushes, it was good for us to get a small taste of what the infantry guys are subjected to. This drill starts off in a prone shooting position wearing an LBE (Load Bearing Equipment). The LBE is basically a web belt with suspenders upon which you can attach a couple of canteens of water, a couple of pouches for ammo, a first aid kit and miscellaneous other equipment. Between the LBE, Kevlar helmet and our weapon, we weighed an extra 20 pounds or so. Upon a whistle blow by one of the instructors, you jump up from the prone firing position and run to gain as much ground as you can ("I'm up!") until the next whistle blow ("He sees me, I'm down") at which time you throw yourself onto the ground back into a prone firing position. I say "throw", but obviously you don't want to trash your knees, so you break the fall with the butt of your weapon. It looks so easy, but it gets harder and harder to pop up with any quickness after only a few down-and-ups!

Although pretty bruised up from our day of drills and obstacle course (AKA in the PC world as a Confidence Course), I had a BLAST!!!! I struggled with the obstacles that involved rope climbs (I haven't figured out the technique of using my feet for leverage with the rope yet), I was able to successfully navigate the other obstacles. This obstacle in the picture is a "reverse ladder." You climb up the back side of it, flip yourself over the top rung, then go down face first using your arm & shoulder muscles to work your way down the rungs. As you can see from the smile on my face, this was great fun!

Everyone has strengths and weaknesses, and this course was a great way to expose ourselves to both. If you click on the picture of the obstacle course to see it up close, you can see that some of the obstacles are quite high. We had a few folks who weren't so comfortable with heights. Also, many of them required a fair amount of upper body strength which obviously, not everyone had. The whole experience was a great team-builder as we all pulled together to help each Soldier face his/her weaknesses, including our own.

With a great week behind us, we have the weekend off (I'm embarrassed to say that actually) before going back out to the field on Monday. After hot showers and meals, everyone is plowing through mounds of dirty laundry and required reading in this down-time. I hope that this post helps everyone to envision what the training is like. Although a challenge for the folks who have never been exposed to camping or the great outdoors, to say that this is arduous would be a stretch! More than once during the week, one of the instructors would catch me grinning from ear to ear and want to know what my problem was. Unable to conceal my happiness over this career choice I would simply respond with one of my favorite Navy sayings. . . "I'm just full of joy, Sir, full of joy!"

If you're interested in seeing more pictures of FTX-1, go to these links:

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013407&l=07b76&id=1454935642

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2013408&l=b01ac&id=1454935642