Monday - PT was 3.5 mile run at about a 6:30/7:00 minute pace, then a mile sprint at the 1 mile track, and a 'light' run back to Taylor field. We drew weapons, and went out to another pop-up range. The range itself was pretty fun - like the qual range, you have pop-ups, but the popups are on a track and move. THe shooting itself was fairly easy, so if you decent last week it should be no problem - not that it matters, because it's familiarization only. Often times there will be two targets up at once - a stationary, and a moving. Take down the stationary first, because the moving one will pause for a second or two at then end of the track, so you can take your time to shoot it. Bottom line - don't sweat it, and have fun. We turned in weapons after a quick wipedown, and called it a day.
Tuesday's PT was a real kicker - four stations, each 15 minutes long. Station 1: tire flips, but you don't move with the tire - you must return to the starting line, and your partner sprints out the tire to do his flips, and sprints back. So, the farther you've flipped the tire, the more you have to run. Second station was ascending dips/squats, in 3/5 intervals, respectively. Third station is descending virtual shovels / pull ups, starting at 30 and decreasing by 5. The last station was running (supposed to be the rest station). We drew weapons again, and headed out to the reflexive fire range - again, not a hard range at all, you bring your weapon up and fire at fixed targets from 4 to 25 meters. Out of the whole company, only a handful had to go through it again, and they give you plenty of practice before hand. Nothing to worry about. Those not shooting rehearsed the barrier shoot, practiced tactical magazine changes, fixing weapon malfunctions, and discussed fieldcraft (slit trenches, lean-tos, etc).
Wednesday's PT was supposed to be lunges with rucks and IBAs until you died. Luckily our NCOs realized that it would perhaps not do us well for our ranges later in the week, or the 6 mile ruckmarch on Friday. Instead, we did 100 push-ups, 50 burpees, and 100 sit-ups, split up as we pleased. The range for this day was barrier shooting - again, noting to freak out about, but it certainly was exhausting, for only being about 3-4 minutes long. Those not shooting either rehearsed fire team movement, or did combatives - specifically, muzzle taps, head-butts, and how to wrestle your weapons away from someone.
Thursday we did not do PT; we made up for it later, though. This day we did the fire-team range. In the morning, we practiced with blanks, and did the live-fire in the afternoon. After that we headed back to Taylor Field, wiped down weapons, and called it a night.
Friday was the 6 mile ruckmarch. Unlike last week, we just had to have 35 pounds, minus water - for those of you who are curious, this is about the same weight as your sleep systems, IBA, and E-Tool. Made for easy packing. The march was done to standard - i.e., sub-15 minutes a mile. We did about a 13:45 pace, coming in at 1:24 for 6.1 miles. The rest of the day, as it will probably be from now on, we cleaned weapons.
Observations / Lessons Learned:
- Don't just wipe down your weapons after the blank iteration for the fire team-range. Blanks are very dirty (and don't extract half the time, much to my dismay), so you'll want to do a more thorough cleaning, so you have no problems in the afternoon.
- You might want to seriously think about investing in a decent sling, because the one you're issued is a piece o' junk. Good gloves helped a lot, as well.
- They bivy cover did a damn good job of keeping me dry, without a lean-to. Still, given the choice, I would have brought some bungee cords and made a lean-to.
- Dental picks! Buy they for your cleaning kit!
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