Air Assault School, Completed.

I wrote this about 2 hours after getting home from Air Assault School. I'm sore and tired and haven't had a decent meal all day.

Friday, August 10, 2007

Air Assault School, Completed. I just got back from Air Assault School. It was an emotional roller coaster, with highs and lows, but over all, it was worth it because I got my wings. If this post is grammatically horrible, please excuse me. I've been up since 3:30 am and the words are beginning to blur, I'm just writing while all is fresh. Negative 1 Day - Me and 3 others from my battalion arrive at West Point. We're Walk Ons, meaning we don't have orders to be at Air Assault School, but if there are availabilities they will let us in. I have a friend who graduated last year and he said a whole platoon of the 82nd Airborne got in on standy-by, so we should be good. However, when we arrive, only 12 slots are open and there are 25 walk ons, so only 12 get in. The good thing was that the powers-that-be said a lot of people fail out of Zero Day so that we should stick around, compete on Zero Day and if we pass and some primaries don't then we can grab their slot. We then travelled to the site of the Obstacle Course and got to do a dry run through to familiarize ourselves with the course. After that, we headed off to Camp Smith where we spent the night in the barracks. Linens and pillows weren't provided for anybody, the students were supposed to bring them on their own (which no one knew). So, we spent the night without linens or pillows. In fact, we spent the whole time without linens or pillows, but I'm getting ahead of myself. It wasn't bad, we still had mattresses. It beats sleeping on a PT mat in the field. Zero Day - Wake up was at 4 am (which it pretty much was every day we were there), we got dressed and headed off to the Obstacle Course. No breakfast. It's hot. It was hot and humid the entire time we were there (the instructors from the Warrior Training Center said it was worse than Ft. Benning, GA). I passed the Obstacle Course, and so did my 3 compatriots. We then passed our 2 mile run directly after the Obstacle Course. Not that many people failed the O Course, so we don't think we have a slot. We got from an emotional high to a low. I begin packing my bags. Then the OIC of the school came into our hold over barracks to speak with us. He said we all performed excellently and he was personally putting us all into the school. We all cheer. Now it's time to buckle down and get serious. Phase 1 - It's three days long. It's also the ball busting phase. They smoked us for no reason (including having "dirty barracks" even though they were clean). They just wanted to make us miserable, which they did. During this phase we learned all about helicopters (how fast they can fly, how much they can carry, what types of helicopters are there, etc). We then learned how to call in Close Air Support, a 9-Line Medevac and all that good stuff. Following that we learn the certian Pathfinder operations and the Hand and Arm Signals to guide in a helicopter on a Landing Zone. We learn all that stuff in a tin shack, which heats up like an oven in the hot sun, with no ventilation. We are constantly hot and miserable the entire time. On the morning of the second day, we conduct a 6 mile road march to famialrize ourself with the course. It sucks, but I finish 10 minutes before time, which is at 1 hour 30 minutes. After class on the second day, we do an orientation flight in a helicopter. I get to ride in a CH-47 Chinook. I have never been in a helicopter before. It's very fun. At the end of Phase 1, we were then given a written test about all we learned, as well as a practical exam on the Hand and Arm signals. I pass them both the first time, so do my buddies. Phase 2 - The boring phase, also 3 days long. This phase sucked. They took it easier on us physically, and stopped PT at this point, but it was just boring. Helicopters can carry equipment, called "Sling Loads" and each sling load needs to be hooked up a certain and proper way. Air Assault graduates are qualified sling load inspectors. We spend the majority of Phase 2 going over each Sling Load over and over so we can memorize what right looks like, so when were tested on a "dirty load" (a sling load hooked up improperly), we're able to recognize it and call the deficiency. After our written test on the book knowledge, we have a hands on test. We have 2 minutes to find 3 out of 4 deficiencies on 4 Sling Loads, respectively. I max all the sling loads, except for the M149 A2 water trailer (arguably the easiest one), which I fail. Stupid mistakes. Every test in the Army has a retest. I have 6 hours to sit in the hot mess hall and study the M149. All my buddies failed the A-22 cargo bag, so we study together. At the end of the day, I pass my hands on, as does one of my buddies. Two of them go home that night. Phase 3 - The fun phase, also 3 days long (notice a pattern). The rappelling phase. This phase there is no written test, just practical exams, such as tying a Hip-Rappel seat in 90 seconds, hooking up to a rappel tower in 15 seconds, and completing three graded (Hollywood, Hollywood Lock-In and Semi Combat Equipment) rappels off the open side of the tower. We practiced the Hollywood (rappelling without any equipment) twice, the Lock-In once (no equipment, but you switch brake hands mid-way), the Semi-Combat (normal rappel with LBE and Rifle) and the Combat (semi-combat equipment plus a full ruck sack, even though we weren't going to be graded on it). After the day of practice, we test the next day. I pass all my practicals and my rappels, and then, to culminate trainining we get to do one Hollywood Rappel out of a UH-60A Blackhawk from 90 feet up. It was one of the best things I have done in my life. Too bad I only got to do it once, I wanted to go again. Graduation Day - Graduation began at with a 3:30 am wake up. It is raining. It continues to rain all day. We then had the final test to graduate, the dreaded 12 mile ruck march (ruck weight of roughly 30 pounds). It was a 3 mile loop (4 laps for you math majors), with an 8th of a mile consisting of a steep up-hill, which according to some NCOs in the class with me was "against regulation." We had 3 hours to complete 12 miles. Me and my remaining buddy from my battalion pace each other and keep each other motivated. My legs began to cramp around mile 9 or so, but I walked it out and drove on. Me and my buddy crossed the finish line at 2 hours 45 minutes, with a nice comfortable buffer of 15 minutes. After the final inspection of our equipment, we were told to have our breakfast and hit the showers. Our "breakfast" was an MRE, so I mentally told them to shove it, skipped breakfast, hit the showers to warm up (I was wet and miserable) and cleaned out my locker. At graduation, I told my father to pin my wings on my chest, he does, but a little crooked. An Air Assault Sergeant comes over and says "Here, let me fix those for you." The 6'3, 220 pound Sergeant then puts my wings on without the backings, winds up and throws his whole weight into giving me a punch onto my wings. I take a step back. I've earned my blood wings. That's the general overview. I have more specific stories, but they'll have to wait.

Air Assault School bound

I was not even back from Fort Knox a full week yet, when I was called in to my ROTC office and given a test to qualify for Air Assault School. This is a post from that day.

Friday, July 27, 2007

Air Assault School Today, I qualified for the United States Army Air Assault School at Camp Smith (up by West Point). Myself and five compatriots qualified for Air Assault School and we leave Monday morning, early Monday. It might be a short trip, however, as we're on stand by status. So, if Camp Smith has availabilities, we get to train, if not, we take the trip home. If not, see you on August 8th. Here's to passing.

Sundry stories from Fort Knox

I attended something called the Leader's Training Course (LTC) at Fort Knox this summer from June 24th until July 21st. This was my first writing upon returning home with a fresh memory:

July 24, 2007.
Overall, my final reflection is that most of the cadets there were/are idiots and don't deserve to be in the Army. It's ok, they won't make it past LDAC, which is the Officer Assessment course, and they won't pass muster there, so I'm not too worried. Most of the people there were doing it for the wrong reasons, such as college tuition and their "parents were making them." So what happens when you get a bunch of people that don't want to be somewhere being forced to do things they don't want to do? They act like worthless, whiney, spoiled little brats, and that's exactly what they did. One girl would stand at attention with her arms folded and her head down, which finally prompted a drill sergeant reaction one day:

"What position are you at, cadet? The position of attention or the position of "I don't give a fuck!?"

Stupid stuff like that would constantly get my platoon (and company) dropped, which could have easily been resolved had the worthless cadets pretended to be team players and learn to give a shit for the people who wanted to be there (e.g. me and a few other dedicated cadets). Of course they didn't, since only a few other (about seven) cadets and myself would clean the entire barracks and latrines. One day, another platoon came in and used our latrines after they were cleaned and left it a mess which meant we were greeted with an angry drill sergeant when we got back from training.

"The Sergeant Major came for a visit today and inspected our barracks. It was horrible. He said it's the worst barracks he'd ever seen. There's fucking dick hairs all over the urinals, there's urine stains on the toilets. You live like fucking animals. He yelled at the Company First Sergeant, since he's in charge of the barracks, and guess what? Shit rolls down hill, so I got in trouble. And let me tell you, it's straight dick to ass, with no buffer zone, and I don't fucking like it. So now we're going to clean these barracks until they fucking shine."

We spent most of our time in garrison doing barracks maintenance because of dumb ass people ruining my universe. In garrison life sucked, the training was actually fun, which is usually not the case during training.

Now, we had this one kid in my squad who was 17, just graduated high school, was from New Jersey and weighed 115 pounds soaking wet. The Senior Drill Sergeant gave him the nick name Doogi and it stuck. He always threw temper tantrums and acted like a bitch, which I told him so on many occasions. After a while I told him I'd punch him in the face every time he threw a temper tantrum, and he wised up.

Anyway, for Day Land Navigation, Doogie wound up being my partner. So on our way to our very first point usin the dead reckoning method (meaning pick an azimuth to your point and walk in a straight line towards it), I was the compass man and he was the pace man. So we get to one point, I shoot the azimuth to the next point in the middle of the forest and start walking. After about 10 steps, I fall into a hole that must have been built by the Vietnamese. This shit was a 10 foot deep sink hole that was covered by brush and leaves and shit. I take my spill and manage to grab on to two thorn bushes on either side of the hole in order to keep myself from breaking my neck. The whole time Doogie is standing there, watching me. Finally, after about 30 seconds of him just watching me struggle to hold on for dear life (I fell on my back with my head slanted down, there was no way I wasn't breaking my neck if I fell), I finally scream at him, "What the fuck are you waiting for? Help me up, you asshole!" He snapped into gear and gave me a hand, and I managed to right myself. I am the only fucking person I know who can almost kill himself doing fucking Land Nav. The post script to that vignette is that I had other friends in the woods nearby and all the said is that they heard my voice randomly say "Help me up, you asshole!" and all they could do was laugh when I told them the rest of that story.

The only other one I can think of right now is my personal favorite story of the entire time I was there, and of course, it's something stupid I did. We had a field exercise that required us to spend four days out in the field, so at night we built poncho hooches (spreading out a poncho and tying the four corners to trees to make a tent-like structure). Now, my hooch had three trees near by it, and one tree about 10-15 feet off in the woods, which required a longer piece of 550 cord (military all purpose rope) to tie the 4th end to. This was also a great guiding line to take a piss in the woods during the middle of the night if you had to go. We also built a fire at night for warmth and light (we weren't being that tactical since we had whiney bitches in our company, or MOSTLY whiney bitches in our company). So one morning, I'm woken up at 0450 in the morning, and the temperature is about 40 degrees, since it gets cold at night in Kentucky. I'm freezing my balls off and decide to walk towards the fire to warm up and have a delicious MRE for breakfast. Once I get to the fire, I realize I have to take a piss, and I'm barely awake and groggy as hell. So I walk to my hooch, find the rope, guide myself out to the forest, whip it out and start relieving myself. Instantly, I hear my stream of justice hit something that's not the cold dirt of a Kentucky morning. I mentally think "Oh shit" and adjust my stream. Then I look down and in the limited light there is, I realize I've just pissed all over someone's equipment. I then look around to see if anyone saw me do it (especially the person's who's equipment it is) and see a silouette just staring at me. So I think to myself "Wow, he's gonna be pissed when he finds his shit," I finish up and then go back to the fire. After my MRE, I go back to my hooch to get my tooth brush and get dressed. That's when I realized it. I picked up my patrol cap, only to find it wet and warm. That's right folks, you guessed it. I followed the wrong rope and pissed all over my own shit. Upon this discovery, I wasn't even mad or slightly pissed off. I just stood there and said to myself "Man...I deserved that." I then later found out the silouette looking at me was my hooch-mate who was laughing at me and wondering why I was pissing all over my shit.

That's all for now, I'll probably have more later.

Full Contracted Cadet

Sworn to Defend the Constitution On February 15, 2007, I raised my right hand to God and swore my oath to defend the United States Constitution. I am now a full fledged Army Cadet who has dedicated at least 8 years to the defense of this nation. I feel good. "I am an American soldier. I am a warrior and a member of a team. I serve the people of the United States and live the Army Values. I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade. I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills. I always maintain my arms, my equipment and myself. I am an expert and I am a professional. I stand ready to deploy, engage, and destroy the enemies of the United States of America in close combat. I am a guardian of freedom and the American way of life. I am an American Soldier!" HOO-AH!

My First Ruck March

After my Air Assault School experience, I find this entry comical. Youth is wasted on the young and dumb.

Friday, October 20, 2006

Alex tries to be a hot shot; God punishes him. At my leadership lab this Thursday, we were all told that on Friday morning, instead of doing regular Army PT, we'd be going on a 4-mile ruck march. Instead of wearing PT gear (Army t-shirt, shorts and running shoes), we'd have to wear our BDUs (fatigues). I've never gone on an extended march, let alone a ruck march, so I was pretty excited despite having to get up at 4 am to be able to get to the earlier start time. So I get to the Reserve Center and it's raining. Not a downpour, but not a drizzle either. So pretty substantial rain. One of the sergeants informed us we'd all be getting wet that day and chuckled. So I show up with my ruck, and as I was told by an MS IV cadet (senior), I made sure I had at least 25 pounds in it, which consisted of my PT gear and 30 pounds of gym weights I had at home. I figure that 30 pounds will be nothing, I'll be able to handle it. 30 pound weights plus PT gear? No problem. I was wrong. For the first time ever on a ruck march, going above and beyond my means was very stupid. I know the Airborne have an average between 80 to 100 pounds in their rucks at all times, yet I'm no where near Airborne standard. I thought I'd be fine with 30. One of the MS IVs told me he had 85 in his ruck, so I thought I was fine. Most of the people in my year, MS IIs, have 20. Let me tell you now, that 10 pound difference is huge. So we are given our orders to put on our rucks and begin the march. As I put it on, I can't find one of the chest straps to position the weight on my back, when I know it's there as I had it on when I left my house. So I'm fidgeting with my left shoulder strap, trying to find the cross section that goes across the chest and connects with the right, when I actually untie the entire left shoulder strap. My ruck swings out entirely to my right side and the only thing I can think of at that moment is, "Well....fuck." I wasn't even pissed, I was just dismayed. I walked for about halfway around campus just holding my strap before a fellow cadet who is more experienced than I figured out what happened. So we get permission to break rank and fix my ruck. This leaves two problems, one of which I won't find out until much later. The first is, while we're fixing my ruck, the others continued to march (as it should be). So when we finish, we get to sprint with our rucks on and fall back in. I fall back in next to a cadet in my year, but he happens to be 6'4. Now, I'm not short, coming in at 6 feet even, but the differences in the strides between the two of us is huge. For every step he takes, I have to take 3, but I need to keep up with him and keep the ranks intact. This basically requires me to jog the entire time. He's got monster legs and a 20 pound sack, and I'm scurrying beside him like a derranged turtle with epilepsy. A few times they told him to slow down and shorten his stride, which he'd do for about 10 steps, then he'd forget because he was concentrating on his own shit and start walking what was normal for him. I know it's not his fault, he was doing it unconcsiouly, but at the time I could have punched him in the face. I was feeling so shitty I thought he was doing it deliberately to piss me off, and damn it, it was working. I started cursing under my breath at him to no avail. At this point I'm not sweating, I'm dripping. The sweat is pouring down my face in steady streams, not driblets, and the rain didn't help. Now, the second problem comes into play around the second mile. I realize that my buddy who fixed my left strap made it significantly tighter than the strap on the right. This causes the weight of the ruck to favor my left shoulder considerably and causes a large amount of pain in my upper back. So then I start favoring my right side to redistribute the weight. I try to hold the right side with my hand to try and fix it that way, but that just threw me off balance too much and I'd eventually stop. The dance of favoring my right side and then stopping to use my hand to redistribute the weight continued for the rest of the march. The bad part about favoring my right side was that my right foot developed a blister the size of Texas, right on the bottom of my foot, smack dap in the middle so I couldn't even walk around it. So I'm stuck shuffling to keep up with my buddy who's walking fast to piss me off, with a lop sided ruck and a fucking huge blister on my right foot. So far, that's the only moment I ever thought about quitting. It was fleeting, but there comes a time when your body takes over your brain and says "Come on, man? What the fuck are you doing? It's 6 o'clock in the morning, it's raining, you're sore, dripping with sweat, and in pain. Fuck it man...all you have to do is break rank and it is all over. All you have to do is take two little steps to the left and you're done." My brain had this discourse with my body at around the 2.5 mile mark. I still had a long way to go. I cursed at my body for being a bitch, I cursed at my brain for thinking of quitting, and then I cursed at the bastard taking long strides beside me just for good measure. Well, my body's failed me again, looks like good ol' Willpower will have to get me through this one. I manage to make it to within a mile of the Reserve Center before the cadet in charge of the march noticed I was limping. It wasn't much of a limp, but I couldn't help it. He comes over to me: "Are you ok? You're limping." "I'm fine. Just a blister, sir. It's nothing I can't work through." "You don't want to fuck up your foot, fall out and fall in at the back. Walk at your own pace." "It's not necessary, I can do it." "Go to the back now. Trust me." So he forced me to go to the back, which my body loved but my willpower hated. I was within a mile of home, I had made it. Unfortunately, part of being in the military is taking orders, so it wasn't up to me. When we get back to the Reserve Center, we drop our rucks and begin doing cool down stretches. I felt like I was walking on the moon to have that weight off of me, but I was still in pain because of my God damn foot. Whatever, I have the weekend to recover. Then Monday morning, I get to do it all again. To quote the movie Patton: "God help me, but I love it so."

My First APFT.

This seemed so long ago. It's amazing to see how much I've grown in a year, both physically and in my writing ability.

Saturday, October 07, 2006

"Keep up with me or you're going to fail." I took my frist PT test for ROTC today and I think it's one of the most bad ass stories I've had so far in the program. I was out of school the prior two weeks with mono, and during the term of my sickness, I couldn't eat due to swollen tonsels. I survived on Ensure and pudding. I dropped at least 5 pounds in weight and my muscles ate themselves, so I was not in very good physical shape at all. Still, the doctor cleared me to go back to school and take it easy at ROTC for a week. My week expired and I told the Colonel that I wanted to take the test. He asked me if I was sure. He had mono as a freshman in college and he told me it knocked him on his ass for two months. My battalion already took their PT test the week I was sick, so I informed him I didn't want any special treatment. So he agreed and I took the test. I passed my push ups and sit ups, not as easily as I had hoped I would have (since pre-mono I whooped the minimum standards). I got above the minimum scores to pass, but barely, and I didn't have high hopes for the run. I thought I was going to run an 18 minute 2-mile, which is failing pretty good. The minimum passing score is 15:54 for 2 miles. The track is a quarter-mile track, so 4 laps per mile. As I begin my 6th lap, one of the Captains runs up beside me and says to me, "Keep up with me or you're going to fail." He then begins to sprint ahead and he easily puts 10 feet between us in seconds. So I push myself and I catch up to him and stay matched with him for almost the entirety of the 7th lap. Then my breathing gets incredibly heavy and I start getting light headed, so I slow down and start falling behind. I say to the Captain, "I don't know if I can do it." He tells me, "For a scholarship, you can!" So I try my best to push myself as the 8th and final lap begins, but I start falling behind again. Then my military science instructor (Sergeant First Class) runs up beside me and says, "Oh, I know you ain't quitting on me now." So I keep pushing myself and pushing myself to keep up. I fall back a little bit and I tell the cadre running with me that I'm going to sprint at the end to make up for lost time, so my instructor says to me, "What the fuck are you waiting for? This is the end!" Great logic. I begin sprinting. I even pass both the Sfc. and the Capt. I sprint and go faster and faster and faster until I pass the finish line. I stop and ask the Colonel what my time was. He tells me, "15:51." I say, "Good." Then I threw up. For someone who was expecting failure in the run department, I don't think I did bad at all. I owe it to the cadre for keeping me up there. When the Captain ran up beside me and said those words, I knew I was in for a struggle.

Onward!

This site will be home to my old and yet to be written Cadetland stories. I've posted some of these on my MySpace blog, but since MySpace is dying, I figure I'd find a more professional (as professional as blogs are) outlet for my story.

I'm just one dumb cadet out of many thousands out there. I just happen to like writing.