Last week overview

Well today we officially finished all of the training we're scheduled to do at Fort Jackson. Here's a brief overview of all that has happened in the past few days.


Monday - Today they carted us out to the Zeroing range where we adjusted our M-16 rifles to fire as straight as possible. Basically you get 4 magazines with 3 rounds in each one, and you fire three shots per round at a paper target 25 meters away. Assuming your breathing or pulling of the trigger doesn't throw it off, you should have a tight shot group where the bullet holes are no more than 4 centimeters apart.

While we were getting ready to shoot, the crew from 60 Minutes showed up and had two camera men as well as about a six man entourage running around. It was interesting how they had total freedom to move in a live fire range, where normally no one would be allowed to do such things except for the range cadre. They were given kevlar helmets and it was comical to see them propped on top of their heads and other gear.

The cameramen were bold and shoved their cameras only inches away from people even while they were shooting. I guess I never realized how they got certain angles until you see it done, but it was awkward and invasive at times. One soldier to my right stood their without moving while they held the camera to his face for at least two minutes. I don't think I was in too many shots but they did pan by me several times from a few feet away. Whether this will be used or cut for the final edit I have no clue, but if you do see me I'll be wearing the notoriously stylish gigantic army issue brown impact resistent glasses. Rest assured I only wear these when I have to.

After we finished firing, the 60 Minutes crew interviewed a few soldiers. I'm not totally sure what was said or asked. I'll reserve my opinion for when I've seen the show, but it's obvious to many of us that they were looking for whatever negatives they could find.

Once this was finished and some soggy ham subs consumed we headed for the qualification range. When you arrive out there you're given 2 magazines with 20 rounds in each. You're then sent to prepare to fire at green pop up targets ranging from 25 to 300 meters. The first 20 are shot from inside a fox hole with sandbags to support your weapon. The second 20 are shot while lying on the ground in an unsupported position.

By far this was the toughest range I had ever shot at, though I've only shot at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and Fort Drum in New York a few times. We were also using older ammunition which acted strange to me. The rounds would fly incredibly high when aiming at targets around 150 meters. This caused us to have to shoot almost into the dirt below a target to get a hit. I only struck 25 out of 40 but it was good enough to qualify. Overall I was dissapointed as I had qualified expert the last time I went out with a 36 of 40, but the entire company qualified so it was a good day.


Tuesday - Since everyone had made the cut the day before we got the morning to rest. Most of us spent it snoring in the barracks. Later in the afternoon we headed out to a nighfire range. We were tasked with hitting 25 meter targets with our gas mask on, and then shooting with the mask off at night while trying to hit 50 meter targets.

I'd forgotten how weird it was to shoot with a mask on. You have to tilt the M-16 forty-five degrees to the left just so you can see through the rear sight post.

In between the mask and night fire we were served chow in the field from the usual scratched green containers. A few guys made comments about how you forget about how nice it is to be able to have simple comforts. Another person made the comment that soone enough we'd probably look back and wish we could be eating out in the woods of South Carolina. We finished the night fire exercise with tracers flickering against large sand berms.


Wednesday - This was by far the most interesting day of training, but I'm going to have to wait to explain it more in depth as I'm running out of time today. We spent most of the day driving in and hopping out of vehicles learning about Convoy Operations. More on this later.

Thursday - Today we received a day off from PT (Physical Training) which meant we could sleep in until about 6:00am. After breakfast we went off to clean weapons. A couple hours of that and we were officially released from training. Right now I'm getting ready to sort out my gear, and then whats left of our company is going to go out for some good food and... adult beverages of course.