This week was probably the hardest time of my life. I didn’t have the time or energy to do anything. Monday, we had our last road march before the 20th, our march to victory forge, which is a 2 night 3 day campout, or BIVOUAC. That’s the end of training, or real training anyway, and we change into blue/white/red phase banner. Well, Monday was really rough. About 50 of 240 from the company were given kitchen duty and didn’t go through the crap we did. We marched 6.4 miles or 10 kms, but the things is, we asked the bus driver on the way back to keep track. We drove 7 miles, straight through thee road. And we were going left and right around the woods, around in circles when we were marching there cuz they thought we weren’t motivated enough. So overall, we marched 7.5 to 8 miles, with kevlar, M16/A2 in port arms in front of us, LCE and gas mask around our waist, and 50 lb rucksack on our shoulders. And 3, 4 of those miles was in sand, rest were on rocks or concrete. Victory forst is 1 or 2 miles further out. By the time we finished marching to Chipyong-In range, I was so hungry, my hands didn’t stop shaking til we ate our MREs for breakfast. Then we had a low/high crawl, 3 -5 second rush and barbed wire course, and we had a buddy team rush scenario with lasers on our M16sd, and blank bullets. I had a huge headache that didn’t go away til I woke up the next morning. On 14th of August, we had an infiltration range. We practiced during daylight, and during nighttime, we fired tracers. Still couldn’t see crap, couldn’t aim, the tracers don’t help much. It was a beautiful light show, though, and running through smoke grenade to get to our foxholes as the enemy approached closer down the range was a huge rush. We then simulated they used gas on us, and with our masks on, we still shot, but turned the weapon sideways like a ganster cuz the canister was in the way. We fired on burst for the first time too, and slept around midnight in the tents we set up earlier before the thunderstorm was all around us. We had to wait a couple hours before we began night infiltration range cuz it rained too much. My headache returned, but was gone by the next morning, but my lower back and feet hurt like never before.
On 15th of August, we threw 2 live grenades, and saw real smoke grenades in green, red, white, yellow and purple come swarm us as we were sitting in bleachers. Then an incendiary grenade that burned through metal, through the truck, actually. we practiced a couple times throwing used grenades into a foxhole, a bunker, in a foxhole 30 meters away in the standing position, and in laying position 15 meters away to a silhouette within a 5 meter radius. We then threw 2 practice grenades. So many females didn’t qualify cuz they couldn’t throw 15 meters standing, maybe about 30 of them. Then we threw 2 live grenades, and experienced a louder boom than I expected, it shook the whole shack we were under. We threw for qualification later, when I threw 6 of 6 right in right positions, and received my expert badge which I’m pretty damn proud of. Maybe about 30 to 40 people in the entire 240 strong company got grenade expert badges. Few things I forgot to mention. There was a drill sergeant that was on leave till like 3 weeks ago, Drill sergeant Parker. Except this Parker’s male, white, and infantry. He’s been really cool with us. When we were under a lighting shelter the other day, we asked him what was going on cuz we were waiting for hours for night range to start, and he was like ‘do you think I know what the hell is going on? I’m chilling here with my soldiers.’ And he was, too. We were just chilling with him, asking questions about himself or the army or what’s going on around the world/sports. And he’s the one that actually curses from time to time with us, or at us rather.
Martinez got sent home today finally, after 4 weeks of waiting, so I had to find myself a new buddy. I tried to just shake it and send him home, maybe said 2 sentences before he left and told him I’m going to kick his ass if I see him back at the barracks again. We turned in laundry, or 1 set of BDUs and our class As and Bs to be ironed and starched for graduation and forgot my army ID card, credit card, smart card, and soldier’s code card in there. But there’s no way to get it back, but it’ll be alright, I can replace them or just don’t need them. Another thing. The day after graduation, the principal called my place to tell me to make up my many demerits for all those unexcused absences, that I need to spend a day or two at this place to make them up for next year. But they cleared them anyway even though I had left for South Carolina, cuz they said basic training should be more than enough of detention work. So I’m getting paid, gained 10 lbs, getting more and more fit everyday, and being sheltered and fed while firing more weapons than I ever wanted, while my 60 demerits disappeared. Sure, the training is tough, an ambulance always pick up wounded or heat casualties every single day, and about a dozen people can’t do jack but lean on their crutches or just sit and watch cuz they’re on some kind of profile. There are less and less people really training everyday. It’s scary, but I’ve never felt so proud of myself before. Looking back is the best part. Looking forward, I just hope and pray I’m not the next heat casualty.