Week 7 - Intro to Patrolling and Squad Live Fire

Not going to lie, this was a long week.  We started out Monday with some classes in the morning, then drew weapons and headed out to the 'range (woods).'  Spent the first night trying to do security halts and leader's recons, but between the rain and the fact that everyone's batteries were dying in the NVGs, it didn't seem like we got a lot accomplished.  Tuesday was a bit more productive; going over react to contact, crossing a linear danger area, setting up a patrol base, etc.    We ran a few react to contact lanes with blanks, and spent the night actually practicing establishing a patrol base.  Wednesday we did react to contact / bunker KO lanes, again with blanks.  Thursday we went out to a pop-up range similar to the one we ran the fire team live fire on, except the range was actually wooded, had fighting holes, ditches, etc.  We spent the morning getting certified to run the squad lane with blanks, and then did the live fire in the afternoon.  Went home that night (except for a couple of squads who got re-cocked), and then got up Friday and spent the whole day and night doing weapons cleaning.

This week was somewhat frustrating, for several reasons that I shall not elaborate on.  However, as with all things, we walk away a bit wiser:

• Keep your magazine pouches high on your chest rig.  I had them on low to try and keep my workspace clear when handling my weapon, but I ended up having to shift around to get to my magazines for reloads, and the magazine had a tendency to slip out of their pouches.
• You might want to find some decent anti-fog stuff for your lenses, as the rain and humidity plays havoc with your eye-pro and optics at night.
• As there is quite a bit of downtime, you may be tempted to rest on your laurels.  Use that time to develop squad SOPs and rehearse the battle drills, as it makes thigns that much smoother when you actually get evaluated on events.
• You're going to put a lot of blanks through your weapon this week, and if the weather was as bad for you as it was for us, there's standing water in your weapon to deal with as well.  Pack some good solvent in you cleaning kit, preferably something aerosol that you can blast out hard to reach places in your weapon.  Time for cleaning your weapon is limited, but crucial if you don't want constant stoppages on the live fire.
• You may spend all your time training and rehearsing with one set of cadre, and end up with another set of cadre on the range that tell you everything you're doing is wrong.  Don't let it get to you - you may be reset several times, buts that doesn't necessarily mean you will get a no-go.  Keep your cool, and remember that slow is smooth, and smooth is fast.  Don't let some cadre breathing down your neck, screaming at you to hurry up, fluster you.  Better to take an extra couple of seconds to check yourself and your buddies, than inadvertently pull a safety violation and get kicked off the range, because you're stressing out.