purpose to melody

Second weekend off. This past week has been pretty damn intense.

Monday: Rappel tower.
Rappelling off of 10 and 35 foot walls with a self made harness made out of a rope 2 cm in diameter and then jumping off a skid(the landing gear of a helicopter) 32 feet high. It was quite the scary experience.

Tuesday to Thursday: Field.
Going out with a compass, pencil, notebook, map, and a protractor. We're given two 8-figure grid references on a map(kind of like X and Y but in the thousands) and have to walk to that spot. We did this in the middle of the day and in the dark at night with no flashlights trecking through forests and a mountain of pine trees. I've never been slapped by trees so many times in my life.
Sleeping in hoochies. Which are tarps stretched out between two trees and you in your 3 layer sleeping bag underneath in your underwear. We had a fire drill at 0000 on Tuesday night and one at 0500 on Thursday morning. Imagine this: 57 people in their boxers and combat boots running out to the dirt road carrying their rifles screaming "fire fire fire". Then learning how to move as a section. I'm Number Two Rifleman, Alpha Two, Assault Team One.
Eating IMPs was kind of gross and interesting at the same time. It's just a whole bunch of preservatives thrown into a package and then into a box.

Friday: Not too much.
We had a whole lecture on our life insurance and all that. I fell asleep at least 20 times and the guy next to me kept poking me with his pen. Then he fell asleep too and almost broke his neck jerking awake. We tried on our DEUs to make sure they fit well and stuff.
Went out for Korean BBQ with 2 of my roommates and 2 other guys from the platoon. Good times.

This coming week will be packed and more intense than this one.
Monday: Platoon Commander's Inspection. 7 things wrong with your bunk space and you fail.
Xpress test. Which is the beep test, continuous pushups, grip test, and situps. I'm aiming for at least 12 on the beep test, at least 60 pushups, 110lb grip, and I don't really care about situps.

Tuesday: Drill test. Not really worried about this. Maybe just a little worried about the rifle drill.

Wednesday to Friday: More field and 13km march.
Pretty much the same stuff, just learning more actual soldier stuff and section attacks and more fun stuff like that. Friday morning we leave the field back to the barracks for our final rucksack march. 70lbs of gear in a rucksack, tac vest, gas mask/carrier, and rifle. Our first march was 3 km, the second 3 weeks ago was 6.4km, last Friday was 7.2, and this Friday will be 13. Then another weekend off I hope hope hope.


I'm tired. And I brought my laundry home and shirts to iron.