Overview
The focus this week was on Basic Rifle Marksmanship culminating with the Army's new marksmanship test (https://youtu.be/shugw5TU2s4) which is one shot standing unsupported, nine in the prone unsupported (change mag), ten prone supported (change mag), ten supported kneeling (change mag), and ten supported standing. For those of you who have never shot a weapon before, no worries at all! Our cadre instructors were extremely helpful in teaching us the fundamentals of marksmanship so that the overwhelming majority of class was able to successfully qualify by the end of the week.
Schedule
Monday: PT in the morning, did a 2 mile run, stretching/conditioning exercises as well. Then we went to the range and spent all day grouping and zeroing our weapons.
Tuesday: 4 mile ruck march in the morning (about 45 pounds). Then we went to the range for the day and continued zeroing our weapons. Cleaned weapons afterward.
Wednesday: PT in the morning (pushups, situps, short run). Then we went back to the EST simulator range where we practiced qualifying for our weapons with our IOTV body armor on.
Thursday: PT in the morning (core workouts, 30/60 conditioning sprints). Then we went to the range where we continued to work on our zeroing on 100m and 300m targets.
Friday: PT in the morning (pushups, pullups, air squats). Then we went to the range to do our practice qualifications. The goal for today was to get to a 28 out of 40 which about less than half of the class did. Cleaned weapons afterwards.
Saturday: Qualification day. Spent the day at the range qualifying our weapons. 23 out of 40 was passing. We had a lot of ammo and people had up to about 12-15 tries to pass, almost everyone passed in the class. Cleaned weapons afterwards.
Sunday: Following successful room inspections. Our class was allowed our first off-post pass from 0800-2000. Many of us got out into town and went to different restaurants, shopping, etc. Columbus, GA is actually not that bad of a town.