More FTX

Thursday, July 16, 2009

We are out at the SRM range right now, and we'll be out here in the field til Saturday evening. The SRM is pretty cool, I guess. We are using M4's with M68 sight optics. The M68 is a sight that is like a scope but it doesn't magnify any. It has a red dot that you just put on the target. You don't even have to get the correct sight picture. If you can see the red dot and it's on the target, you'll hit it. So, it's a lot better than the iron sights. You can acquire the target quicker.

We're doing a boring class right now. It's with our crappy DS. We started out with 3 DS... SDS Kelley (Senior Drill Sergeant), DS Brush, and DS Parsons. DS Parsons is a female. I'm pretty sure this was her first BCT cycle. She was pretty easy going. Anyway, she left a few weeks ago to go to another company (Echo). Well, we got a 1st Platoon DS because they had 4 and we only had 2 DS. Well, he isn't a very good DS. He has a soft voice, so if he puts out info, it sucks cause you can't hear him. DS Brush, who is hard and loud but a good teacher and a good DS, has yelled at DS Buckmaster (1st PLT DS that come to our PLT) before and said he was a shitty DS. I like DS Kelly, too. He is a good DS, and he's been doing it for a while. It's funny because there are a lot of DS that are 88M MOS (which is a truck driver).

After we shot the SRM stuff, which was pretty fun, we marched up to the campsite. It was only 1/2 mile away but it was a freakin 16% grade the whole way! It sucked, especially because we had our 50lbs of gear and ruck on. It was real hot also. We settled in our campsite and talked about setting up a perimeter and security. We didn't have tents or anything. We just had our PT mats and sleeping bags (roughing it). I was sort of in the middle since I'm PG, so that was cool because it was more cleared out. After that and chow at 1700, we marched down that steep hill back to the range. It wasn't too bad going down without a ruck. We did night vision (NV) fire with the PTQ Alpha... I think is what it was called. Anyway, it's a helmet mounted monocular with infrared technology. The PTQ Alpha is mounted on the M4 rifle. It shoots an IR "laser" that can only be seen with IR goggles. It's cool cause you don't even have the weapon to your face. You stick the butt stock in your arm pit and look through the NV goggles. All you have to do is put that laser dot on the target. I never thought shooting at night would be so easy. After that we were dreading marching back up that hill. We policed the brass and got all our gear on and buses pulled up. We were like "no way, we're getting a freaking 1/2 mile ride!" It was awesome. We got back at about 23:30. It sucked getting ready for bed because it was DARK! And we could only use red flashlights. I also had to make up a fire guard, so I was like the last one to bed.

My battle buddy started snoring before I got to sleep. I didn't sleep hardly at all. It was way too hot. This morning at 0330, I woke up to lightening. I immediately got dressed and picked up my stuff. Shortly after that, it started raining. I was the 1st one ready to go. I had my wet weather gear on and stayed pretty dry. It poured for a while. We just sat in the rain for a while waiting on a decision whether to stay and wait it out or go back to the barracks. Well, we headed back to the barracks and it stopped raining, of course. We cleaned up, had some chow, and headed back out to the range. WE got to shoot the M2 (.50 cal Machine gun). Also called the Mod Deuce. A big badass machine. It weighs 84 lbs. The round is about 6-7 inches long. It was awesome. We went and picked up a 50-60 round belt of rounds and slung it over our shoulder, so we felt like badasses. I wish there was a camera there. Chunk, chunk...chunk...chunk. The rounds come out at 550 rounds per minute. It has a mix of 4:1 tracer rounds. So every 5th shot you see a red streak in the direction you're aiming. We were shooting ~8000m down range; pretty cool stuff!

Friday, July 17, 2009

Well, we just came back from dinner chow. We haven't done much since we got back to the barracks at about 14:30. The .50 cal was pretty darn cool. It laid the grass over in front of it with every round. Once we got back we finished drying out our stuff and cleaned our filthy barracks as well as weapons maintenance since they got rained on. This morning sucked. I put my wet weather gear on and sat down in the mud and slept in the pouring rain for about an hour. It wasn't fun.