Wet n Wild

Today ended early, a welcome break for my tired body! Despite our short day, the Army got their money's worth with the cold and rain today. Before I get into today's festivities let me fill in the gaps since my last update.

Our live-fire exercise was excellent! We first completed a dry-run firing blanks as we ran through the exercise. After a quick lesson in what we did wrong, the Army gave us some live ammo and we started to defend our mock base. Once we finished mowing down the little, pop-up bad guys, we received great feedback from the course control officers - a huge success for us Air Force people.

Next came a combative's course where we were taught some hand-to-hand fighting skills. I have to admit that I was not enthusiastic about this training lane but was pleasantly surprised with the outcome. Not everyone shared in my enthusiasm...several people sustained injuries during the grappling at the end of the instruction. I only suffered a first-hand lesson in mat-burn...ouch. Among the many things we learned, choking out our opponent was probably the most fun. The following day we were told that our remaining combative's course were cancelled due to some of the injuries sustained...bummer.

The most sobering portion of training came next...IEDs. From IEDs in cars, dead animals, houses, people, and basically anywhere else they could stuff them, we learned that they are the single biggest threat to us. Yes, we've had fun with some of our training, but reality sets in when you learn that your biggest threat is something you'll probably never see. To further reinforce the hazards, we see the inevitable outcome everyday on the news with reports of fallen soldiers to IEDs. Training took a turn toward the reality of deployment on this day.

Today was a mental relief from the previous class as we learned some personal movement tactics. Not only did we learn about low-crawling and working as a squad but we did it in the rain. We often here "It ain't training if it ain't raining" and today that old adage played out. Complete with a ridiculous amount of simulated mortar attacks and smoke, our squads push, pulled, and drug themselves through the cold, wet sand. Along the way each squad faced various obstacles that they had to maneuver. Crawling over walls, under barbed wire, and around vehicles to reach the final destination was a lot of fun to watch. With each inch of ground gained, we grew wetter, colder, and more covered in the gritty sand. In the end, we were successful and finally got back to the dorms to change into some clean, dry clothes. Although, our dorm is completely disgusting now that we have tracked in half of the sand and dirt with us from the range.

As our time here at Ft Dix draws closer to an end, we are all growing nervous and excited about either heading back home or, for some, directly to their deployed locations. I am really looking forward to going home and spending a couple weeks with my family before I deploy. Stay tuned, I'm guessing there will only be a couple other posts before we are finished with the fun here.