These
entries are from the letters that Brandon has mailed to me. His writing
at times can be a bit difficult to determine his words... bare with me,
I do my best, especially with army terms.
Today
was the first day of FTX-3. We woke up and put on “Full Battle Rattle”,
then our rucksacks… that’s a lot of weight. We boarded the bus which
took us to “FOB Mauled Foot”. This is our Forward Operating Base where
we’ll be staying for the next three days. It will hold the entire
company and has about nine guard towers around the perimeter of the
FOB. We had to bring our gas masks and the DS told us to have them ready
while in our platoon area or the FOB. The DSs can pop CS grenades at
anytime. That is going to suck.
We
were given a mission. We have to make our way to a nearby village and
try to gather intel on an Al Queda leader. Each platoon (and each squad
in the platoon) have different assignments. I’m in 3rd squad and our
first assignment is to man the guard towers. It started off one to a
tower but since we only have nine people in 3rd squad, it can get a
little boring. There is actually a bench, it may be the most
comfortable place in the whole FOB. There is a ton of graffiti from the
many soldiers who have passed through this FOB over the years.
They
decided to have two squads man the towers. PVT Slowens (his nickname
came from someone who thought he takes too long to get ready) did come
and join me. We had a three hour shift just to stare at the woods and
talk. PVT Slowens, and a few others, have a little side business
going. They offer to take the fire guard shift of others at a modest fee
of $5 or $10. He has almost made $100 already. Some people value their
sleep too much. I value mine, but not enough to pay others to do my
shift.
The
first mission was to take our squad to a nearby village. On the way we
were ambushed. I actually saw the guys who were about to ambush, but
when I was trying to notify my team leader they saw me and started
firing (blanks). We returned fire and “killed” them all. We then reached
the village and got our intel! On the way back to our FOB we turned our
uniform inside out (to turn into bad guys) and then tried to
infiltrate our own FOB. It was pretty fun… but hot! As I was pulling
security, I was watching the sweat just drip like a leaky faucet from my
head. It’s only 13:00 and my ACUs are soaked with sweat.
After
an hour or two of AAR (After Action Review) and some SLT (Student Led
Training), we were told to setup our sleeping areas. We use one poncho
for every two people. It started to sprinkle so there was a sense of
urgency to get everything finished. The second person’s poncho was used
to cover our rucksacks. We finished by dinner and about the time we were
done eating it stopped raining. I guess the weather report says it’s
going to rain the whole time we’re here. If you believe the DSs,
sometimes you never know what to believe with them.
We
spent a couple of hours after dinner doing absolutely nothing. Just
hanging out in our platoon area. Finally our senior DS came in and told
some jokes and stories, then said he wanted us ready for formation at
6am. We also found out that one of our guys who is infirmary has mono.
Now, he won’t be graduating with us. He’ll have to go home for 6 weeks
and then return to another platoon that is in about the same phase as we
are in now.
Random DS Quote:
“There may be thunder and lightning tonight… don’t use that as an
excuse to cuddle up with your battle buddy tonight.” (Our senior DS
before we went to sleep tonight).
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