Early morning, easy afternoon

Wake-up this morning was pretty freaking painful. My platoon was dropped in the middle of the desert before the sun had a chance to even consider rising. We hiked for miles with about 70 pounds of gear strapped to us. It was freezing outside and we all dressed like “Nanook of the North,” with five layers of clothing on. I don’t even wear that much crap when I go snowboarding. By the time I got where we were going I was dripping sweat. The whole mission was meant to help us learn how to conduct a raid. The mock-enemy was supposedly some arms dealers that we had to catch in the act. The actual gun fight lasted about twenty minutes, though our travel time there and back was more like 3 hours. To be honest, I didn’t fire a single shot (but don’t tell my squad leader). From my position I couldn’t see a thing, and if there is one thing I’ve learned it is not to fire blank rounds unless you absolutely have to. Otherwise you end up spending the next three days cleaning your rifle. I’d rather yell “bang bang” and avoid the blanks all together. Sometimes you get away with it and sometimes you don’t. By the time we got back to camp we had pulled an eight hour work day and it wasn’t even 11 am. The rest of the day was spent cleaning our weapons (I faked it, seeing as she was still in pristine condition) and watching movies until dinner. My buddies and I have now watch nine “Friday the 13th” movies in the last week. The funny thing is that every last one of the sucked, but still I watched. I cannot conceal my shame…

Tomorrow is going to be a relatively slow day. We won’t have to get up at the ass crack of dawn. Most of the day will be devoted to fixing any broken equipment and getting ready for a pretty busy training schedule that starts in a few days. The word is the new schedule will include some pretty cool training (with more live ammo) so I’ll be sure to let you know what’s in store for us when I find out.