FTX-3 (day 2) (Basic Training) Day 56

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.

Last night shortly after going to bed everyone started yelling “gas gas gas” . I had decided to sleep with my gas mask on my chest all night, so I was ready. I put on my mask right away, but shortly after I heard people say it was only a smoke bomb. They were just messing with us.

I had guard duty with PFC Metal from 1:00am to 2:00am. We sat in a guard tower and used the night vision goggles to keep an eye on the perimeter… nothing happened… pretty slow.  Sleeping in the hooch (this is what you call our little poncho tent) was pretty hot and stuffy. At least it didn’t rain, that would have made the night miserable. 

Breakfast came late this morning, which pushed back the entire days schedule. We started with SLT. Basically everyone just sat down and hung out talking about battle drills etc. We did this for about three hours. Pretty boring stuff. Everyone is hot and tired...no energy.

We then switched to QRF (Quick Reaction Force).  We moved to the center of the FOB and just sat around waiting for someone to attack. Once we hear shots we jump up and run to that area to help out and return fire. My blood did get pumping though each time we heard a tower starts to shoot or shout at an enemy. I’d have to run over there looking for the enemy and “shoot” them with my blank rounds. This means I would shoot them about 5 or 6 times until they looked up and finally say they were dead meat. LOL

When then ate lunch (I finally got contraband in mine and it was peanut m&m – which I don’t like. I traded them with PFC Metal for a raisin nut mix. Grrrrr… where are the skittles???) After lunch we went over our mission. (Travel to a town in search of "Mohammad Abdul"). Once finished we took off. We spotted some light resistance and eliminated them.  A few minutes later, it started pouring down rain. When I say pour I mean it came down with a vengeance for about 30 minutes.  We were all soaked from head to toe and then we had to do a few low crawls to make sure there was absolutely no dry spots any where on my body… and it was covered in mud to boot.  (My smart book, almost didn’t survive, it’s warped now).

We finally made it to the “town” and went through each of the buildings clearing each room. We came across bad guys DS A-Hole interrogated them. We also killed a few that were shooting at us.  We took a couple of casualties. PVT Slowens was shot and injured and PFC Metal was killed trying to save him. While pulling rear security I turned to tell our team leader their status, DS A-Hole saw this so I also became a casualty. (Never take your eyes off what you are pulling security for).

Evidently Mohammad got away, we’ll go after him tomorrow. We then headed back to FOB and turned ourselves into “bad guys” by turning our hats around, and then we attacked. 

The rest of the night was uneventful. After chow I took a field shower (baby wipes) and changed my entire uniform. It felt so good to get out of my wet socks and boots and everything else.  I can’t wait to take a shower tomorrow!

So far FTX-3 is much better than FTX-2. The FOB is way better and sleeping in hooch’s is much better than sleeping in hasty fighting position. Guard duty is much more comfortable and the missions we are doing are a lot more fun than doing a battle drill over and over in hot  hot weather. We also have had a lot more free time, which is a good thing, but it can also make the time drag on and on.

It’s finally June, the month we graduate! It can’t come soon enough.

Overheard Quote: “What kind of bees make milk?…Boobies” (Our APG's joke today).

Anonymous
 

I love reading all this but still cant believe this is my computer geek son doing all this stuff, wow
 

Mom
 

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - 09:29 AM
 

# 118
 

I love the quote.

Miss yall good luck.
 

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 - 01:31 PM