Week 8 is down, two more to go. OO-rah!
This last week was what my high school football coach called a "hum-dinger".
Monday we had the Combat Fitness Test which is a series of long distance sprints with ammo can carries, fireman carries and a grenade toss. Most of us got pretty close to a perfect score. We stepped that afternoon with our packs (not too bad, about 70 lbs) out into the tree line. We bivouacked at our normal spot and turned in early for the evening, about 1730. Revellie sounded at 0300 for our 9mi hike. It was tough, it was uncomfortable, but it wasn't a death march. Unfortunately we had a candidate drop out in the 9th mile. He will have to face a review board next week. I think he'll get through, but I can't imagine it's very fun for him.
Our hike wrapped up around 0700. Despite my usually bullet-proof feet I had some pretty tender spots, but there wasn't any time for boohooing. We rolled right into squad exercises. A combat seasoned corporal took us out into the woods.He gave us an Op-Order and we had an hour to plan the mission, create a terrain model, brief the order and prepare gear. I was the squad leader and had a pretty good time with it. In the middle of the order, right as I was tasking my 3rd fire-team I stopped to think. "Holy cr*p, I'm giving an Op Order like the movies." We had a whole map set up with roads, hills, green army men and I was standing over it with a stick pointing out our plan. I didn't expect to get so much training in presentation skills like this, but it seems that Op Orders are about all we do here (after PT of course). By 0815 we departed for our objective which was a 1-2 man team of Abu-Nadal Iraqi insurgents that were operating harassing attacks on coalition supply lines....in the middle of rural Virginia. After a few hundred meters the insurgent, who was dressed conspicuously as a US Marine Lance Corporal, let out on us with a burst of blanks. We answered with a confused flurry of fire, ran past the objective and declared victory. We got good reviews, but our tactics need work.
The rest of the day was dedicated to preparing for the Small Leadership Evaluation II (SULEII). SULE II is 9mile course in the vicinity of OCS. Along the route are stations with an instructor. At each station a new candidate acts as squad leader. The instructor gives you a mission, the squad leader briefs the order and leads the squad. They usually consist of 500 yard patrols with a frontal assualt at the end. You might need to evacuate a casualty or carry resupply ammo, but they are usually pretty straight forward. At the end you recieve a grade and run to the next station. After prep time we turned to religious services. The Chappy came out into the field and made an altar out of ammo cans. He was tactical down to his camouflage cassock. Just before we started somebody suggest that we stack our rifles before praying....sounded like a pretty reasonable idea.
Wednesday morning we woke at 0330. We put our packs on the road, ate an MRE and passed out ammo (blanks). It was freezing. My squad formed up and jogged out to our first objective on the East side of OCS. We had a slight delay in starting so we took up defensive positions in the woods. When we started the first whispers of pink were on the horizon. Our first mission went well, then we had about a 4mi run along Iwo Jima trail to the other side of OCS. I was the navigator/ point man of the group (meaning I had the map compass etc and guided the way as the squad leader issued orders). It was a pretty cool experience.
We arrived at our next station which was at the bottom of DaNang hill. All of the trails and hills here are named after famous battles like Belleau Wood, Tarawa, Chosin etc. It is a motivating reminder of what we are here to do. Da Nang, named after the Marines first landing in Vietnam, is the most fearsome hill at OCS. It is where the weak fall out of runs and hikes. It starts in the woods and winds up for about a .5 of mile to tall grass covered plateau. We patrolled along the road and took contact towards the top of the hill. We assaulted, neutralized the enemy (shocker!) and consolidated our position, still under the "military crest".
When we got the order, the squad formed up in a column and moved for the top of the hill. I gained the summit just after sunrise so that the Sun was directly in front of me. The rays were intense and warmed my body, still cold and wet from the morning frost I laid in for defensive positions. The top of DaNang glowed as the sun reflected off the amber and brown shades of fall. There was nothing cooler than wading through the tall grass on a crisp day, at the head of the squad, weapon at the alert, straight into the rising run.
The rest of the day was filled with missions, orders and plenty of beautiful terrain, but nothing like the DaNang assualt. We finished about 8 hours later.
The coming week should be pretty fun. Training is about to turn full fledged towards mentoring, team building and developing esprit de corps. We'll have more classes like the NCO panel of this last week. 3 Sergeants and a Corporal hosted an open question session where they gave us frank advice as soon-to-be Lieutenants. I will be Company Executive Officer from Thursday through Sunday so I'll oversee things like the log race, platoon photos, ID cards etc.
Overall OCS is going very well. At this point I am going to go drink a bunch of protein shakes!
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