Goodbye to Benning?

Ranger School is (finally) done - I am not, as they say, a smart Ranger.  One last obstacle, barring any additional schooling, remains - out processing.  I'm told by friends that it's a pain in the ass, so I thought I'd make a comeback to give some tips on the whole process.  I'll let you know as things develop.

RANGER SCHOOL BRB LOL

Well, hopefully not back any time soon.  It's been fun, guys!  I might add on to this once I'm done, to give tips for LTs going to Ranger School, but I don't plan on making a journal about it - there are plenty of other ones out there, who have done a much better job than I would have.

Wrapping Things Up - Weeks 15 and 16

Well after Leader Forge, there wasn't much else to do in the course.  The week after the FTX was spent cleaning weapons and equipment, turning in platoon gear, getting counseled by the Cadre, and wrapping up any administrative paperwork.  national Guard guys turned in CIF, and closed out with Fort Benning, so they had quite a few trips to complete.  The last week, we started off with a diagnostic RPFT - it wasn't quite like Ranger School, where you're done after you complete teh required number of repetitions, but no one kept track of your score - if you didn't make the required number, you simply were pulled off to the side for retesting.  Rehearsals for the Blue Cord Ceremony and the Graduation Ceremony ate up most of our time this week.  Go ahead and get your blue cord and have your button sewn on well before this week, so you're not scrambling.  It's also a good time to call your brigade S1 and check in with them.  The Assistant S1 is an LT like you, so there's not pressure.  I didn't get a whole lot of information from them, just my battalion assignment, what the first few days at my post would encompass, and the reminder to complete Ranger School, else they would send me right back to Benning until I did.  It was a very relaxed two weeks for us, but readers beware - our class was unique in that we have more than 3 weeks before we need to report for Ranger School; many classes get far less than that.  The class before us got all of three days, so I am sure their timeline for Ranger School was much more compressed than ours.  Friday of the last week, we reported in to HHC, got a brief on what the next few weeks would be like, and dates for the record RPFT, packing list layout, and practice Land Nav event.

Well folks, that's it.  Done and done (for now).  Since there are no more week-by-week breakdowns to complete anymore, I will be writing on selected subjects regarding IBOLC, to better help incoming guys out.  Thanks for reading, and as always, comment if you have any questions.

Week 14 - Leader Forge, Part 2

The first day consisted of weapons draw, PCC/PCIs, and movement to Galloway Range for the platoon live fire.    For us, they picked on of the LTs who had a good mission last week, and gave him until 0700 to plan and prepare the platoon for the exercise.  It was raining pretty hard during the OPORD, but a well-built sandtable got the point across, and we got six hours of sleep beforehand.  We did a blank-fire iteration in the morning, overseen by the company commander, which went well for us.  In the afternoon, after some tweaking of the plan  and additional rehearsals, we did the live-fire iteration to success.  It was a hard day, but things went well for us, and we got to get about three hours of sleep back at the TTB.  At 0300 the next day we woke up and began prepping for the next mission.  The rest of the day and a good chunk of the night, we spent doing additional missions for the people who still needed leadership positions or who had NO-GOs from last week.  The next day was devoted towards planning and preparation for a company attack.  The PL position was again given to an LT who had a good mission the week prior.  We got two hours of sleep that night back at the TTB, interrupted by a inspection of our IBAs, because an LT decided to remove his kevlar in order to save some weight during their platoon's live fire exercise.  Needless to say, nobody was amused on either side.  We woke up, took buses to the SP, and then began a 16 mile tactical ruckmarch with our gear and weapons to the ORP. The pace was 18-20 minutes a mile, wit hwater breaks at the 4, 8, 13, and 15 mile points.  At mile 15 we donned our helmets and NODs.  The company attack was a seizure of a large MOUT complex, with numerous, multi-story buildings.  A lot of time and planning went into this, and by this time we were feeling the effects of no sleep and bitter cold.  STill, the mission was a success, and by 1200 we were on our way back to Taylor Field for a DOGEX and equipment turn-in.  Spirits were all-around rather high, despite our exhaustion.  From that point onwards, we were done with the field (At least until Ranger School).  All we had to do was clean and turn in our weapons and gear, and knock a few more classes out the way, and we were finally infantry officers.

Friday

Week 13 - Leader Forge, Part 1

The light at the end of the tunnel is in sight, but it is not without its challenges.  Our company lucked out this week, because MLK weekend was in the middle of it.  Normally, Leader Forge is ten days long, but even in the mere 4 days we had this week, limits were pushed.  96 hours, with about 15 hours sleep total, Over 35 kilometers of movement with rucksacks, missions until 0400 in the morning, frozen water, 16 degree weather, freezing rain, long distance litter carries, no time to eat, and cadre breathing down your back as you're trying to lead a tired and miserable platoon.  Just a little taste of Ranger School, as it were.

IF you haven't had a graded leadership position yet, you will have at least one this week.  The course requirements have two positions listed, but there is far too much to do and too little time to get everyone, so chances if you do well the first time, you won't get a second one.  If you didn't do so well on your first one, you have the chance to redeem yourself.  When you're in a leadership position, as I said, the cadre will be jumping all over you in a constant effort to stress you out and question yourself.  The key to all of this is to remember - it's all a game, it's all BS, and you are more likely than not doing much better than you think you are.  Most of the people who went can tell you that they felt like they did a horrendous job, only to be told during their debriefing that they did quite well.  Keep this in mind - you won't be able to completely suppress that stress and doubt, but it will help tremendously.

Your greatest enemy will not be the miserable weather, or lack of sleep and food, or even the stress.  It will be your own peers.  They will be unmotivated, lucid, slow to react, which means that the PL, PSG, and SLs have to be on their game.  If you are stuck with weak or incompetent squad leaders, it will kill you.  Get your big boy pants on and start getting in peoples faces, and get those SLs to do their jobs.  If they won't do their job, FIRE THEM.  Get a guy in there who will support you.  I watched one of my peers, who was not that strong himself, fail miserable because his squad leaders were terrible.  If he had good squad leaders, they would have carried him through.  Remember, though, that you have to communicate with them clearly and constantly, and include them in your planning.

Speaking of planning, it is absolutely key - the meat and potatoes of what you do as a PL.  If you have a simple and clear plan that you brief concisely, you are 70 percent of the way there.  The other 30 percent is getting on your subordinates leaders and ensuring they're doing their job, and being decisive.  I can't stress that enough.  You will have to react to the unexpected, and will be expected to react quickly and sensibly.  A mediocre decision made now is better than a perfect solution made 90 seconds later, while your platoon is in an open field under mortar and direct fire.  Going back to your subordinate leaders and under performing peers - don't get on individuals, get on their leaders.  If a squad is messing up, don't fix it yourself, tell the SL to fix it.  You have bigger thigns to worry about, and you're doing their job instead of letting them do it.  Be an ass if you have to - tempers may flare and egos may be bruised, but they will understand why you're doing it.  Finally, once you're done with leadership - remember how difficult some of your fellow LTs were to deal with?  Do them a favor and don't be difficult to work with yourself.  Yes, it sucks out there, but you have to help your buddies out.  It's a team effort, and if you're always on the ball and helping your guys out, they will remember it.  Screw them over, and they'll return the favor.

Lessons Learned:

• Buy gloves and glove liners, buy good winter boots and socks, and keep them handy - you can be bundled up completely, but if your hands and feet are cold and numb, you will be miserable and focusing on anything will be an effort.
• Do not rely solely on your electronics!  Radios and DAGRs break, batteries wear out, lines of sight are blocked.  Always have a backup commo plan, and always manually keep your pace and azimuth.  Make sure you're strong on terrain association, so you can find yourself on a map.  It is an absolute disaster when your lead element, can't tell you how far you've gone or in which direction because they decided to just use the DAGR instead of doing the right thing and having a paceman and compassman.
• Actually look at your man and the route you're talking, instead of just blindly plotting straight lines or road marches.  If its far easier to use the roads to get to your destination than traipsing through the woods, ask higher about enemy activity and route security.  Make sure you're not about to walk through 600 meters of swamp, or across an open plain.
• Always keep the situation at hand in mind, and react accordingly.  Like with route planning, don't just go through the motions - pay attention to your terrain, what the enemy is doing, the status of your element, how much time you have, etc. - in other words, METT-TC.
• Polypropylene is your friend, except when you're marching 6 klicks.  Consider buying layers that can easily be removed without removing all your other layers or boots, so you and strip down before movements, and bundle up again at long stops.  I know that the military supply stores around the area have rip-off long underwear that suits this purpose quite well.

Week 12 - Coin / Defensive Operations

Getting an early start on this, so I don't put it off like I've been doing.  We started the week on Tuesday, with a battalion run.  Nothing hard.  Had a presentation on the history of counterinsurgency; some examples of insurgencies throughout history, characteristics of insurgencies and counterinsurgencies, literature and important figures, etc.  Post-leave piss test and an early release.

Wednesday was our final PT test - the first one counted for 30 point, the final is for 70 points.  Again, if you can get over 300, they'll usually float a positive spot report your way.  If you score a 290 or better, you'll get the maximum amount of points towards your OML score.  More classes about COIN operations; an overview of counterinsurgency, characteristics of insurgencies, do's and don't of counterinsurgency, the purpose of counterinsurgency operations, tactics.  Defensive operations was brief, but everything you need to know is in FM  3-21.8, Chapter 8.

Thursday was our COIN / Defense quiz.  Topics covered:

• Definition of insurgency, counterinsurgency
• Historical examples of insurgencies
• Characteristics of good/bad counterinsurgency
• Paradoxes of counterinsurgency
• Types of stability operations
• Types of battle positions
• Characteristics of the defense
• Forms of defense
• Parts of an insurgency organization
• Purpose of Lines of Effort in COIN
• Steps in preparing an engagement area

After that, we reviewed for our cumulative exam for Friday, and the cadre answered questions we had about the defensive OPORD due the next day.

More to come on Saturday.

Atmosphere at IBOLC

One thing I've never really touched on about IBOLC is, 'what is day-to-day living like?'  I talk about what we do, but I don't talk a lot about free time, your relationship with the cadre, etc., which was one of the primary concerns of mine going in to this.  It seemed rather strange that I never talk about it.

IBOLC is a gentleman's course...ish.  In many respects you are treated as an LT, but in many respects you are treated like a private.  It's not like IET where you're braced up all the time, people jumping down your throat, pumping out push-ups every twenty minutes for some infraction.  You're address as Lieutenant or Sir by the cadre.  So long as you're doing what you're supposed to, cadre are friendly, more than willing to talk about their experiences, and help you get to where you need to be.  You're expected to make mistakes, and they offer constructive criticism.  At the end of the day, assuming you're not in the field doing patrol ops or the ilk, you are free to do as you please.  Weekends are all your own, and while my platoon has bonded well, you will always have particular individuals that you build more rapport with, and end up hanging out on your free time - barbecues, trips to other cities, and such.

Then there's the other side of the coin.  There are times where they make your place known.  A lot of admonishment for not moving fast enough, only to sit waiting for extended periods of time for events to begin.  Strict adherence to uniformity, which has always struck me as pedantic, is present as well - everyone has to look and wear the same thing, at all times.  Evolutions that are conducted not because they provide concrete knowledge, but because you're a hardcore infantryman and you should embrace the suck.  For instance, staying overnight in the field, only to get on a bus the next morning and be dismissed.  There's worth to it, to be sure, but if you've got a wife and kids at home, you would like to spend as much time with them as you can.  I've other examples, but I think they are more cadre-dependent, and not indicative of the course as a whole.

Bottom line is that you are still your own person here, and you will have time to wind down and enjoy yourself, but like anything else in life, there are those annoyances and frustrations that come with bureaucracy. They might put on a hard face at the beginning, but this course is nothing that someone with adequate physical preparation and a level head cannot handle.  Relax and have fun, here.  You'll meet some great guys.

Revisiting Land Nav

I had someone send me a message regarding some of the things I wrote about my land navigation post - I had to go back and read what I wrote, as it had been a while, but his words got me to thinking.

First, about the dead reckoning.  I believe my words were that you should 'never dead reckon at night,' which I would posit are true - for the course.  But I was guilty of not thinking beyond the course itself; after all the purpose of land nav training is not to pass a course, it's to be able to move on the battlefield, and know where you are at any given point.  So, on the land nav course that advice might be well and good, but in the real world, if you have to march through nasty, hellish thicket, then you have to do it.  And if you have to do it, you better know what the hell you're doing.  So yes, you should practice dead reckoning at night, through crappy terrain, and if my advice for the course steered you away from doing that in your future, my apologies.  On that note, there is a book by John Poole called The Last Hundred Yards, which talks extensively about route planning and land navigation, and talk about the perils of dead reckoning, and how to mitigate them.  I would recommend reading up on it, and trying out some of the techniques to see if they work for you.

The other thing mentioned was the, for lack of a better word, cheating.  Which it was - you can mince it any way you choose, I suppose, but at the end of the day, you have to be able to do the course without assistance.  It's an easy endeavor, and I would posit that all the LTs out there are proficient enough that they need no assistance, despite the horror stories you will inevitably hear - so why do people bother at all, then?  I think it stems from a goodhearted, if not flawed, desire to help each other out - nobody wants their fellow man to fail, even if he doesn't really need the help all that much.  The second question that arises is, why mention that it occurs at all?  Well, because it does occur.  And because it does occur, I think it needs mentioning.  After all, what someone reading this journal wants is an accurate, or at least honest, description of what to expect.  I will, however, say that I tried to make light of it, instead of bluntly stating what it was - cheating.  Passive, perhaps, but cheating nonetheless.  So, in closing, I will say that while it occurs, if you feel that you need to rely on it, well-intentioned though it may be, then you should be spending your free time in the woods practicing, and becoming proficient.  After all, there will be no coughing fits and clanging cups in Afghanistan when your GPS dies on you.

Slacker!

Yes, I am one.  Sorry.  We are now ,however, up to date!  Once I return, I'll upload some handouts specific to the OPORD stuff that we did, so you can prepare yourself before hand.

Week 11 - Patrolling

What a week!  Right off the bat, I will tell you that decent cold weather clothing would be a solid investment for you, if you're coming to this course in the winter.

From what I could see, this week was completely different, depending on which platoon you were in.  Some ran more missions that others, others spent quite a bit of time doing rehearsals or classroom instruction.  Regardless, you will be out in the woods for hours on end.  This was basically the first experience for many people with platoon-level operations.  As you would expect, we focused on raids and ambushes for the missions, with instruction being devoted to setting up security halts, ORPs, and MTC/Deliberate Attack.  We operated out of a TTB, which meant warm beds for our four hours of sleep, and porta-johns to download in to.  I would imagine that had the weather been more agreeable, we would have slept in patrol bases.  As it were, only a couple more degrees, and Gore-tex would no longer have been effective.  No joke, my canteen water was slushy, and guys with Camelbaks were SOL - their tubes would freeze up.

I won't spend a lot of time telling you about specifics - you have the field manuals, so you can see for yourself.  I'm going to skip straight to the lessons learned, which were plentiful for this week:

• They are going to take away your compasses after Land Nav.  Go buy one.  You will need it, and they will expect you to be able to do all kinds of things you need a compass for, but won't bother to give you one.  Navigation, setting fields of fire, establishing azimuths for egress, all kinds of things.  You need to have one, and if you don't, find out who in your platoon has one and keep him close by.  We had two guys in our platoon who had personal compasses, and they got requisitioned constantly.
• Prior planning prevents piss poor performance!  Make a copy of the grading sheet the give you in week 8 for your OPORD (or get the one that I will post in a few days) and USE it during your planning.  I would say 90 percent of all the heartache we ran into during missions could have been avoided with a clear and concise OPORD, with appropriate graphics.  Which brings me to my next point:
• If you're going to have a sand table / graphics (and by if, I mean you will unless you're an idiot), make them big enough for everyone to see, and place them where everyone has access to them.  otherwise, you're wasting everyone's time.  If the cadre give you overhead photography of the objective, pass it around so everyone can see it.  How silly is it to do a raid on buildings when the assaulting element doesn't know how many buildings are on the objective, let alone their layout?
• It's important to avoid last-minutes indecisiveness, but that doesn't mean you can't alter the plan, given circumstances on objective. If conditions differ significantly that for what you planned, adapt accordingly.  Don't, for example, place an ORP 600 meters out (especially without those compasses we mentioned) just because on your map recon there was a huge clearing, if the whole place is densely wooded when you show up.
• Sector sketches, sector sketches, sector sketches.  Have templates made up before you go out, it will save you time and energy once you establish patrol bases.
• It should go without saying, but as a leader, please keep a map on you at all times, and make sure your special teams and key personnel have important grid coordinates on hand.

Week 10 - MOUT

I use MOUT loosely for this week - most of it was spent doing the same glasshouse drill over and over until you went blind.  The focus for this week was room-clearing, which would culminate in a live-fire room clearing.  As I said, we started with glass houses, but also incorporated the empty room of the not-yet-renovated BOQ space in the building that BOLC occupies.  Bonus tip - if you're looking for a good place to poop (is poop a doctrinally correct term?) during the duty day, the bathrooms still work.  Just bring your own toilet paper / babywipes.  After a day of that, we spent the next couple of days at MOUT sites.

We started out by conducting a raid on the MOUT site (something we never practiced or rehearsed for, which I found odd) - this took up the majority of the day.  At night, we cleared buildings using our NODs (something else we had not practiced or received instruction in - I'm noticing a trend here), learning how to traverse stairwells, pieing corners, buddy-clearing smaller rooms, and taking corners by force.  Needless to say, when we practiced doing this stuff in the daylight for the first time the next day, it was much easier to grasp the basic concepts.  For those of you who are curious, you can't see a damn thing with those NODs on - it's not that things are out of focus or there's not enough light (which, well, there wasn't, but it was a problem we found workarounds for), but you have no depth perception and your field of vision is so narrow.  You just run in to everyone and everything.  It's not something I would do in real life without extensively practicing first.

During the day it was much better, and quite a bit of fun, actually.  Unfortunately, inclement weather cut things short, and we had to return early to run glasshouse drills until about 2000 or so.  Thursday we went to the kill house proper, did blank certifications ,and then live fire certifications.  A word to the wise - no matter how hot and painful the brass that just went down your neck is, don't lean in front of your buddy's barrel.  Shenanigans will NOT occur.  Friday was the usual - weapons cleaning and lots of standing around.

Lessons learned?  Perhaps:

• Winter tactical gloves would be a wise investment.  All things being equal, fingers were the hardest thing to keep warm, because you're holding on to a chunk of metal that sucks away all of your heat.  It made what would have otherwise been a comfortable get-up absolutely miserable.
• You'll want your terrain model kit ready to go this week - they way they explained it to use, we thought we would just be practicing MOUT, but they through in that mission, which the PSG and PL were graded on.
• MRE heaters make nifty warmers in a pinch, so long as you fold the bag in a way to prevent spilling.  I also use them to heat up my shaving water in the mornings.  No reason to be uncivilized, even if one is, as they say, roughing it.
• If you can wing it, try to volunteer to be a FO, RTO, etc., because it means you're not lying in the prone for hours on end during missions, freezing to death.  It also allows you to actually see what's going on and learn s thing or two before its your turn, as opposed to being a Joe on the line.

Week 9 - More OPORD, Fire Support, and Air Support

As all of last week was learning about OPORDs and then working on the platoon-level OPORD you would present, this week was dedicated to actually presenting said OPORDs, and just to see if I can possibly squeeze in the word OPORD in to this sentence any more than has already been done - OPORD.  I digress.

Basically, if you weren't presenting OPORDs, you were getting classes or running glass house drills for next week.  Classes consisted of learning about different air assets available to us, 5-line CCA, and 9-line CAS, de-conflicting fires and airspace, and graphical control measures associated with said airspace.  After a couple of hours of this, I remember nothing.  One of the days out of this week, we went to the call for fire trainer, where the FA NCOs were able to concisely explain everything you needed to know in about 10-15 minutes.  I've been noticing that, about the FA guys - they cut to the quick, and are very thorough.  Kudos to King of Battle - maybe they could get them to teach all of our courses - we'd be out of this place in half the time, I'd bet.

For those of you who have experience with fire missions, prepare to be underwhelmed.  All the missions were the same, no variations in shell/fuze combos, no danger close, and they made you do successive bracketing.  The civilians running the equipment frown upon you calling Fire For Effect missions right off the bat.  The CCA/CAS was very good, however, and I got a lot out of it.  I feel very confident in that aspect.  Which reminds me - I am not JTAC qualified.

Don't be surprised if you don't get to brief your OPORD this week, it apparently is a time consuming ordeal, and some people have to re-do theirs, which eats up more time.  Best advice I can give you for your presentations is to keep the scoresheet next to you to ensure you hit all the points, and don't overthink things.  People freak out for some reason and make their plans overly-complex, and use thirty words to describe something that can be said in seven (or better yet, with an overlay).   Relax, keep it simple and brief, and you'll be fine.

Week 8 - OPORD

Well gentlemen, I won't make any bones about it -  I've been slacking on this journal.  In the ever present war between keeping current on my updates and letting off steam, letting off steam has won.  Es macht nichts.

Week 8 greeted us with a lovely little mid-course examination, focusing on offensive operations.  Topics for our particular exam included:

• Forms of Maneuver
• Types of Offensive Operations
• Types of Special Attacks
• Types of Movement to Contacts
• Purposes of Offense
• Principles of War
• Civil Considerations during IPB (ASCOPE)
• Military Aspects of Weather
• Military Aspects of Terrain (OCOKA)
• Steps for COA Development
• TLPs
• Operational Terms and Graphics, specifically:
• Unit Symbols
• Equipment Symbols
• Tactical Mission Tasks
• Types of Rehearsals

I am sure I am missing a couple, but rest assured, if you have these down-packed, you'll be fine - they will do a comprehensive review beforehand that will cover everything on the exam.  Just take the time to actually study these things.  All of this stuff can be found in the supplied field manuals.  One of the guys in our class has  something called the Battle Staff Smartbook, which takes all this stuff, from about three different field manuals, and smushes it into a book you can carry in your pocket.  Might be something to look in to.

Nothing much to tell you about the rest of the week, really.  They taught us how to do OPORDs, did a few practice ones, and set up a schedule for presenting them for a grade - they give you the grade sheet beforehand, so you know exactly what you have to hit.  Be forewarned, that the format for these OPORDs is probably not the same way you did them in West Point/OCS/ROTC, but it's not necessarily a bad thing.  The way they taught us how to do them streamlines a lot of the information and makes the whole endeavor less pedantic.  If you can stand to wait a few days until I return from leave, I will upload a scan of the grading sheet, along with an explanation of what all the acronyms mean.  I'll also take the time to walk you through how I presented my OPORD.  If you would like a copy of the company level OPORD that they gave to us, to see what it looks like, I will email it to you, if you provide a .mil address.  The rest of the week you worked on your OPORD, editing as you learned in class, and two brave souls volunteers to go first, so the rest of us could get a taste for what right looks like.  We asked the guys what their grade was, and they told us that it would be on a curb - in other words, we all had to go before we got a grade.  So maybe it's OK to suck, as long as you suck less than everyone else (the answer is no, by the way.  This is your bread and butter, here.).

Sand Table Kit

Here's the sand table kit I used in ROTC, with some additions of my own.  I'll let you know if it's adequate for IBOLC.  Compared to the ones I've found on the internet, I think this one is much better at getting the information across without clutter up the table or looking cheap.  My suggestion is to get the think/hard lamination, like the kind print shops do - it stands up well, and you don't have to weight it with pennies like you do the thin laminate.  Throw in some colored yarn and misc. markers, and you're good to go.  LEt me know if there's any glaring omissions that you would add.

Download the Sand Table Kit

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.

Week 6 - US Army Weapons Familiarization

And I use the term familiarization loosely.  Due to the holiday, it was a short week, but we still got some field time in.  Monday consisted of classes on machine gun theory and the weapons squad.  If you're blessed enough to be chosen at a gunner or assistant gunner, you'll go out to the range to get 'qualified' on the M240 or M249.  I'm told by my friends that qualification consisted of shooting a couple of belts, along with learning how to take down the weapon and such (something that we all did as a platoon the previous Friday).  Tuesday we drew weapons, and went out as a platoon to do M240, M249, M2 and Mk 19 familiarization.  We shot one belt for each weapon during the day, with the exception of the Mk 19 (logistical difficulties precluded us firing them, but we did get an opportunity to pull them apart).  The weapons themselves are, as you might imagine for a TRADOC unit, pieces of junk.  Don't fret if they malfunction on you (or if you go through three of them, as one buddy team did).  We also did a night familiarization, but only with either the M240 or the M249 - depending on what platoon you were in.  Wednesday was weapons cleaning, and we called it a week.

Not a lot happened this week, so there's not exactly a whole lot of advice to dole out.  Two things do come to mind, though.  First, if you're a gunner or AG, check your weapons constantly - parts (pins, bolts, etc) like to fall out of them, and you don't wanna find out that a pin is missing only when you finally return from the range.  Bad juju.  Secondly, it might behoove you to look up the TM for the optics for the guns, and see how to range targets with them properly.  It's a pop-up range that you're on, and while the're not tracking how many targets you hit or anything, it's always satisfying to see 'em fly back down behind the berm, instead of throwing up dirt.

Bear With Me

Last Couple of weeks have been draining, lots of fieldwork.  Next couple of weeks are all classroom, and there's Thanksgiving, so I will get this journal up to speed.

Week 5 - Land Navigation

A little bit of a mix-up this post, there's plenty to cover.

To get it out of the way, PT on Monday and Friday was Fight Gone Bad and Murph, respectively.  No pt between those days, but since you'll be walking 30+ miles by the end of the week, you'll be getting your exercise in.

Land navigation training for IBOLC occurs at the India training site - give me a couple of days and I will have a copy of the map posted, so you can see what the area looks like for yourself.  Brace yourself - you will be hearing quite a few horror stories about this place, and while they are not unfounded, I am here to tell you that is is not as bad as people will make it out to be.  Yes, the woods are thick and I highly recommend not dead reckoning through them, but the vast majority of points can be found right off of a road - remember, the guys 

who set up this course didn't want to trudge through all that crap any more than you did.  

The standard for a GO is five out of seven points, in five hours.  You will start at about 0600, and end around 11.  Plenty of time to find points, and if you are poor at night land nav, there will be enough daylight to find points.  before you get to the actual test on Thursday, you will do three iterations with a parter (two day, one night), and before that, a cadre walk-through with your squad.   Make no mistake, you will have plenty of practice beforehand.  As far as results, we only had a handful (<10) people fail and have to go to the retake on Saturday, and off the top of my head, I can't think of anyone that didn't make it through the retest.

So what's the course like?  Well, it's big; there will be plenty of walking, as I've already mentioned.  The woods are thick, as it is a new course, but by the time I went through, trails were well on their way to being worn in to the points.  The map you will be given is quite accurate, the only major discrepancy being that Christopher Road is shown as crossing the railroad tracks in the southeastern corner - this is, in fact, not true. The road will skirt the tracks, and if you're not paying attention, you may end up running into an RI.  Not the most rewarding of experiences, as an LT.  Another point worth mentioning - there's a few intermittent streams listed on the map - I'm here to tell you that when the map says 'intermittent stream,' it really means 'eight-to-ten foot ravine filled with mud, and surrounded by nearly impenetrable thicket.'  No joke, I spent two hours travelling a kilometer through the woods, because of two of those streams.

So, some tips/tactics/techniques to keep in mind for this week?  Well first, let's talk about land nav in general.  No matter how much the cadre are breathing down your neck and yelling to get moving, take the time before you step off to plot all your points, and come up with a detailed plan on how you're going to get to your points.  Include distances to each major land feature along the way, what directions trails go down, and what terrain features we should see, both when we arrive at the point, and when we've gone too far.  Now, let's talk about night land nav - under absolutely no circumstances should you dead reckon during the night.  You will get lost or waste time trying to fight your way through thickets.  If night land nav is not a strong point for you, take heart.  There will be several LTs looking for your point as well, so just look for the converging red lights and you search for your point.  Some LTs, having arrived at their point, will take the time to knock the mud out of their canteen cup, or try and scare away any hazardous wildlife in the area with aforementioned cup.  A completely unintentional side effect of this is that the cup makes a rather loud clanging sound against the metal post the kite is affixed to.  I must also surmise that there is some sort of potent flora growing right next to these kites, because many of my fellow LTs seems to some under great coughing spells whenever their in the vicinity of said points.  If all else fails, find the point furthest away from you, and start walking.  By the time you arrive, the sun will have risen enough that you can find that point, and then work backwards from there.  Many guys do this when they can't find a point in the dark, and they come back to it during the day and find it no problem.

For day land navigation, there's noting to it.  As I said, most points are 100 meters or less from a trail or road, and the map is quite accurate.  I would suggest bringing a large knife with you just for this week, despite the IBOLC smartbook saying that you cannot carry a knife other than a multitool.  You may very well need it to get through some of the terrain, if you decide to dead reckon during the day.  Dead reckoning in daylight is not nearyl as perilous as during the night, but it will still be a slow trip.  Trust your pace count, have a plan before you step off, keep your eyes open, and don't panic.

Relax - this week is long, and if it's raining, it may very well be miserable, but it is far from hard.

End of Week 4

This week was better than last week, as far as waiting around went.  The weather was hot and muggy, despite cloud cover.  The focus for training was shooting on the move - barrier drills, reflexive fire, fire team shoots, etc.

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!

End of Week 3

Oof, what a week.  This week was devoted to BRM, or at least the crash course for LTs.  As all ranges go, it involved quite of bit of waiting and standing in the sun, but at least you got to send a bit of lead downrange, which is always a treat.

Monday's PT started out with a fire-team competition. It consisted of a 2/3 mile run, then as a fire team: ten 30-foot rope climbs, 100 box jumps, 8 monkey bar iterations, 100 pull-ups, and 150 sit-ups.  Another 2/3 mile run and a repeat of all the exercises, finished with a 1/3 mile run.  The rest of the day we drew weapons, mounted and tied down all the optics systems, and turned them back in.  At 13 hours total, it was probably the longest time I've even taken to be issued a weapon for the sole purpose of making sure it was in working order.

Tuesday's PT was brief, as we had to get out to the range; 40 minute ability group run.  After that we rucked out to the range wearing full battle rattle.  We spent the rest of the day 9and night) zeroing our M68 optics and our AN/PEQ-15 laser.  We overnighted on the range (as well as Wednesday and Thursday).

Wednesday we popped smoke and headed out to another range - the technology here is pretty cool, it can show you on a computer screen where your bullet is traveling in relationship to your target.  This too was an all day and all night affair.

Thursday was qualification day - we got to do three iterations, and they took the highest score for record - it's a GO/NO-GO event, so your OML won't be affected by how well you do.  Even if you don't qualify on the first three, they will work with you until your qualify.  There also a night qualification/familiarization.  The score here is just for your own knowledge; they won't track your score or record it.

Friday was a four mile ruckmarch back to Taylor Field - since we had all of our gear (about 50 pounds), it was a tactical march instead of a march for time.  The day was devoted to weapons maintenance - we didn't get out of there until about 1700 or so, so no break there.

Observations / Lessons Learned

• You'll be sitting in the sun quite a bit, so bring sunscreen.  Our cadre were sticklers about not having upturned collars or neckerchiefs to protect your neck, so if you get burnt, prepare to do explain to every cadre member that passes by why you're covering your neck.
• Don't laugh, but make sure to check the inside of your IBA and remove the collars and groin pieces.  A lot of guys didn't realize it was in there, and taking it out made things slightly more comfortable.
• Invest in some anti-fog stuff for your eye pro.  'Nuff said.