Another Day on the FOB (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 138

Some of the Hummers at FOB Dunham. You can see one of the
guard towers in the background above the wall.

1:45 AM I was woken up for guard duty. I had it with a 25Q guy that was next to me in the tent. We had it from 2:00 AM to 3:00 AM. We had the roaming guard shift which had us just walk around the FOB in circles for an hour. We talked quite a bit, he seems like a pretty good guy. I slept so much better this time before the shift, but when we finished I had trouble getting back to sleep. I did relax, but never quite made it to sleep before our 4:00 AM wake up.

We ate breakfast as usual after a morning formation, then those of us heading to FOB Willard boarded the bus and headed over there. Once at FOB Willard we continued to setup our network and radio connections to FOB Dunham. I was also selected to attend a class with a real gung-ho instructor. It was a class on radios which wasn't part of my MOS, but the instructor was entertaining and he was basically trying to teach everyone to think outside the box…especially when we are in the field. It turned out to be pretty interesting. We had MREs for lunch and then did some drills such as react to contact. React to contact is basically when your formation is walking down the road and either sees the enemy or is getting attacked. Everyone gets down and performs 360 degree security, then a squad goes and destroys the enemy. Our instructor was very pleased with our performance stating that we were borderline excellent! 

We were bussed back to FOB Dunham and had dinner. We then did glass house drills as well as some more react to contact drills. Glass houses are basically rooms that everyone can gather around and see. We then practice room clearing techniques using 4 people. We bust open the door and each person has an assigned area of the room to clear. You have to make split second decisions on weather to shoot the person depending on if they are a threat or not. It was pretty comical sometimes watching some people doing this…it's a good thing this isn't really what we'll be doing as our job in the army.

The days here are so long. We get up early and go to bed late. There is also a lot of slow or down time where we just stand around, this makes time crawl by. By the end of the day everyone is pretty exhausted. Some people are still trying to get out of being here. There are two girls from the 25B classes that left because they were sick and throwing up, they left legitimately…they also had one tag along with them pretending to be sick as well. They are all gone now and will not be coming back. We also had a guy who has been called "Shamadillo" from the start of AIT because he is such a shammer. (He is the guy that fell off the top bunk when we first moved into Charlie so long ago). He requested to see the chaplain and then proceeded to tell the chaplain that he has anger management issues. He thinks he will hurt himself or others if he stays. They took his rifle away and they also sent him back to the company. It kind of backfired on him a bit because he was also stuck on suicide watch. This may end up following him for the rest of his career now…all just to get out of Capstone.

Overheard Quote: "You guys are about as useful as a turd flavored lollipop" (Our FOB Willard instructor after there was a simulated attack on the FOB)

A photo of our student 1st Sergeant (left) in Charlie Company and
the young Hawaiian (right)