Training Complete

The 19 days of training in South Carolina went surprisingly quick. We were training 6 days a week and really did cover a lot of topics. We did a lot of weapons training on both the M16 rifle and M9 pistol. We were issued our gear and weapons on the 2nd day and had to carry the weapons with us from that point out. We often wore our “Battle Rattle” which consisted of about 60 pounds of body armor, helmet and pads. With the South Carolina heat, I have to say the heat was the toughest part of training.


We were trained by Army Drill Sergeants. They were nothing like you see on TV. They were there to help and they did a great job (think more teacher, less screaming person). Our class was about 180 people split into two companies. The Drill Sergeants really broke the training down to the lowest common denominator because we had people from all different backgrounds. Seabees and other brown water Navy folks were a little more familiar with weapons and convoys and land navigation, then say, a lawyer or aircraft mechanic. That being said, some of the training was really boring.

In addition to weapons training we learned very basic about convoys, land navigation, how to react if you become isolated, first aid, how to enter and clear a house, communicator via radio and then a bunch of classroom sessions about various administrative topics.

All of the women (with exception of the 4 Commanders who had their own little hut) were in one barracks. Think WWII movies with the long hallway of bunks and a locker between each one. Yeah. While the Junior Officers would have appreciated some JO berthing, we all survived just fine.

Here are some pictures of me during training.

All decked out in my “Battle Rattle”

Waiting on the bleachers. This was a common activity at the ranges while we were waiting to shoot. It was impressive to see how we all got better each day with the Army DSs coaching us. We did most of our rifle shooting laying in the prone position or kneeling on one knee. We did three different type of ranges. The first was everyone had their own corridor to shoot down and targets would pop up at various times and distances, the second was a “stress shoot” where you had to jump around to get your heart rate up and then run though a short course of laying, kneeling and standing shooting positions. The third was a “reactionary fire” where they told you which direction your target was and you had to turn and shoot from the standing position. While I did OK, I am just not a huge fan or shooting.

Here is my group learning how to enter and clear a house. We learned the very basic skills. I pray none of us every have to use this skill. You may wonder why I am on the only one in a brown camouflage uniform. Those going to Iraq or Afghanistan were issued Army uniforms. The 30 of us going to Djibouti were issued standard Navy Desert Camouflage uniforms.

Here I am driving during convoy training. 

Just a snapshot of our living conditions. I am in my rack with my locker to my left and my weapons on the end of my bed. The perk was we did have wireless internet :)

 
All in all the training was good. We were all glad to be done and ready to get to where we were actually going.