Life's Insane Right bout now

Got a lil time to write and boy has alot of things happened in the last week. As I said AT (Annual Training) started on the 3rd. All day on the 3rd we just made sure we had all of our equiptment and did checks and PMCS'd (Preventative Maintenance Checks and Service) our trucks and trailers big time, man oh man was it hot, we also got info on what the plan was for AT up till our Departure to Ft. Lewis. On the 4th we set out to Indian Springs for Field Training, the 2 big things that was to be accomplished was lanes training on convoy ambushes and shooting our weapons, My Trans company by itself was too short on personnel to be able to deploy so we tapped pretty much a whole other trans company from all over the state, there's about 6-8 bew people in my platoon an d they all seemed like good soldiers that I can for the most part depend on fully. Our platoon was the first to set out to Silver Flag Alpha (our trianing site) and being the first platoon out there we had to help set up the area, like the TOC, the KP area, and of course me being a lowly plebian PV2 I'm obiviously chosen to help set it all up. All I can say is that it was hot as hell and thank god for UnderArmor, I'd have to say that that day was the most annoying to me because right when I was done setting up the KP area I was picked to ALSO do KP, (oh..KP is pretty much where you help around the cooks and help em set up as well as do dished and crap like that) It wouldn't have been that bad cept for the heat, and also the fact that I missed some good night training. I had KP for dinner and breakfast the next day. I woke up at 0330 and started setting up, chow was at 0600, I think prison food is probably better than our chow but by day five it started tasting like 5 star food. On the first night there the CO had a company meeting to give us more info on our pending deploment to Iraq, I obviously can't say much but the cool thing I guess that I can say is that we're going to be attached to and will be supporting the 101st AB DIV. The CO told us that he has been keeping in contact with CO of the unit that we're going to replacing there and the stuff he told us gave us a real good perspective of what its going to be like but also a HUGE reality check. A soldier ask our CO how often so convoys see enemy fire and the answer he gave us kinda put me in a split second panic; "everytime we go out" The next day would be the funnest day out of the whole FTX for the sole reason of me being picked to be Opfor on the lanes exercises, Me and 3 other soldiers, and one SGT, (the NCOIC) were responsible for providing opfor ambushing against our company that would be driving through a mock town, we've drove through this "city" before but all the other opfor's would always seem to half ass it, and I'd be damed if I'd let that happen, so all day long I was poppin out crazy ideas to do and it made the missions for us as well as the convoys coming through alot more realistic. It was so freaky because on one mission 3rd platoon was driving through and I had an idea of pretending to be a civilian but hide a bomb behind my back and try to slow down the 1st truck so that I can toss is in there, (that's what alot of the haji's do over there) our SOP is pretty much to honk the horn and speed up and if haji didnt get outta the way, he'd end up roadkill. Well, 3rd PLT's convoy came on through and so I tried to do it, but the 1st lead truck did exactly what he was supposed to do, he went to fast for me to do anything but unfortunately the second truck didn't speed up so I therefore threw a mock bomb (water bottle) in the cab and "blew them up and stopped that truck which in result stops the trucks behind them, I won't go into detail aobut it but 3rd PLT reacted quite well, but the freaky part was that in the AAR (after action review..aka...post game wrap up) an evaluator that was there to help us see our stregnths and weaknesses told us that just two days ago the same thing happened to a convoy in Iraq, that kinda gave me the chills. The whole time out there I enjoyed fully mainly because of the new people that I got to know and also got to get to know alot of the guys in my unit better. I'm confident bout the ability of my unit. One thing I gotta bring up though, women in the military, maybe this is just a chance of bad luck apples, but in my unit there were alot of ate up female soldiers, ranging from one who didnt want to fire her rifle and when told to started crying and said she was just so tired, you think you're the only ONE?!?!? (I later find out that she barely passed her weapons qual after multiply retries in Basic Training and that the last time she fired her rifle was over a year ago, Another female gets her weapon jammed on the range and gets a double feed so I fixed her problem and cleaned her weapon just to make sure (I helped on range control) and told her to get in the firing line, subsequesntly when I looked for her in the next fire line she was there. I go up to her and ask her why not and she looks at me cooly and put her fingers to her lips and says "shhh..." what the hell is that?? YOU'RE GOING TO WAR AND YOU TELL ME SHHHH!?!?! It's shitty soldiers like that get good soldiers killed. I hope they straighten her out up at MOB station because I don't want her rude awakening in Iraq to be at the cost of someone's life. On a serious note though, today we jsut cleaned our rifles and washed our trucks, but I was in the classroom taking a course to be a Combat Life Saver, I don't want to not know how to save my battle's life if something bad happens. I was in the CO's office for a little bit today because I had to fill out paperwork for a security clearance to be the RTO (Radio Telephone Operator??) and right when I was about to go back to class (we had a break) the CO pulled me aside and pretty much in a nutshell asked me to see if I wanted to be a gunner for the gun trucks that are gonna be providing security for the convoys and whanot, I dont know what to say, part of me wants to say hell ya, the other part of me say's hell no, you want me to write my will too? lol, ill let you know my decision, right now its about 60 percent yes, i got a copy of my orders for mob; active duty for up to 545 days...dang....long ass time..anyways, I need my sleep, I got in trouble in class cuz I kept on falling asleep, well, not much else I know of to write. So sleepy time I go. Quote of the day: "...I almost Poopy in my Pants." B.C.

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