March 2nd, 2009

Not much to say today. We did close quarters combat techniques. That was pretty cool. In that stuff we use new rifles and red dot optics. I hit everything from 5-100 meters, about 100 shots. It's pretty easy and fun, but no award for that shit.

At first, we were outside for a briefing, just first platoon. The instructor told us we were scout and we could handle it without gloves. We took our gloves off and after about 20 minutes it got bad. One guy collapsed out cold, several others lost it and were freaking, one guy made it inside and collapsed. Our hands were that cold. Mine were fucked up cold, probably as bad as they've ever been, but it was not a new sensation so I handled it well. Though, given another five to ten minutes and it would have gotten real bad. This is how serious this was: the instructor had his ass chewed and was canned on the spot. Welcome to the US Army. It really wasn't very cool at all.

10 weeks of this shit left now. Still seems like a long time, but I suppose it's better than 16. Apparently next week is the roughest week of the whole cycle. Well one of them I guess. I saw the schedule and it's going to be grueling. I'll write about it all as it plays out.

Tomorrow we have to administer saline locks and IVs on each other. Oh boy that's gonna fucking suck. I got 9:30 - 10:30 guard tonight. At least I'll get some decent sleep tonight. GOD, I CAN'T WAIT TO GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE. Supposedly blue phase we get phone privileges, but we will see what happens. Anyhow, talk to yall later

~Justin