Lasers and killer electronics

The last few days myself and a few friends have been on various details. Yesterday and today I had to take vehicles back and forth from one place to another to get ready for some upcoming missions. At JRTC (Joint Readiness Training Center) most units spend about a week in what’s called “the box.” During this time we will be given mock-missions and evaluated by instructors. Nearly all army units undergo this phase of training before they are deployed overseas. During this phase we essentially play one big game of laser tag. All soldiers are outfitted with electronic vests and lasers on the end of their rifles called MILES gear. When the laser hits the vest the vest lights up and makes noise so you know you’ve been hit. The army has units whose entire job is to play the role of enemy soldiers, and that is who we will be conducting missions against. It should be really good training. For the last five months we have been using only blank ammo. The problem is that when you shoot at a bad guy they never know if they’ve been hit and never play along. Soldiers will run around all day as if they are invincible never knowing whether or not a real bad guy would have been able to take them out. I realize that this is all a little creepy and morbid, but with the MILES gear we are finally able to tell whether our decisions are the right ones, the ones that keep us from being shot. That’s probably a pretty important thing to know a few months before you hit a combat zone. I’ve been worried that our time here was going to be wasted but it looks like we might actually brush up on our skills. That’s really good news.

In other news, Dave almost burned his face off. I purchased a set of cheap speakers the other day so I could hook them up to my laptop and the two of us could watch movies. During a movie the other night, Dave reached over and grabbed one speaker to adjust it and got some liquid on his hands. A minute later he touched his face. That liquid turned out to be an acid of some sort (most likely from the batteries) and it proceeded to burn the crap out of him. He had to jump up and run to the sink to wash it off of his upper lip. Now he has a small acid burn mustache on one side of his upper lip. I was worried that we’d have to get him a Phantom of the Opera mask, but it turns out that, aside from a red mark, his face is just fine. Also, when we investigated the homicidal acid spitting speaker some of the liquid dripped into my laptop keyboard. When I brought the keys up to my ear I could hear it bubbling and crackling. Needless to say I was not pleased. I cleaned it up as best I could and so far, a few days later, the thing still works fine.