Hot day on the range - Day 29

Post date: Nov 18, 2011 8:51:20 AM

(Original Date: Friday, May 14, 2010)

These entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. His writing at times can be a bit difficult to determine his words... bare with me, I do my best, especially with army terms.

We woke up at our normal time today (about 4am) and got ready. We did our normal PT and then added a 60/120 around the track. We sprint for 60 seconds then walk 120 seconds and repeat over and over. I was still pretty sore for the 8k road march, so I couldn't really give it 100%. I still got a good sweat going though. After PT we had no time for showers (field shower time again). We got dressed ate chow and boarded the buses for a new range. For whatever reason I didn’t shoot as well on this range as the previous day. I shot 20, 29, 23, 23 & 25. So I still qualified on all but one of my tries but not much room for error. The range was nice, bit it was hot as hell. That made for some uncomfortable shooting.

One guy in the late afternoon complained to the DS that he was cramping up. The DS made him fill his camel back and start drinking from it. The DS wouldn't let him stop. Finally he threw up. It was actually pretty funny looking. (I'm going to call him PVT Guy because since reception that is all he calls everyone.) So Pvt. Guy opens his mouth and with no sound at all (except the sound of rushing water) he starts throwing up the water. It looked like something you would see in a movie. Mouth wide open and a full stream of water just poured out. It lasted so long it seemed fake. He ended up throwing up water twice. Moral of the story, on hot days drink a lot of water over time.

We also ended up taking our platoon pictures today at the range. Luckily I was able to get in the group without my dorky BCGs on. PFC Metal wasn’t so lucky, the DS told him to get them on.

When the “gut truck” came we were not allowed to get power bars, only powerade. Evidently, 8 people in out platoon left their weapons on semi instead of safe at the range when they weren’t using it. A big no-no. When we got back to the bay we also got a little smoking for it as well (plus a long speech about safety on the range). As an added bonus we all had to do “changing drills” because some people were taking to too long to get dressed. DS A-Hole would start his stopwatch and give us all 2 minutes 30 seconds to get in our ACUs. We then would have 2 minutes to get into our PTs. I’m starting to wonder if he just wanted to watch everyone change.

Another surprise our guy who was added to our platoon only takes a dump with the stall door open. I guess he doesn’t want to miss out on anything. LOL.

Random DS Quote: “Control your hard-on” (the response from a DS after a private tried to compliment him)