This morning we formed up at the office at 0630. We did not have PT, instead we had to head up to our company headquarters in Landstuhl for sergeant's time training. Everyone had to bring their full battle rattle, my boss told me to bring mine as well just in case. With my updated profile I knew I would not be able to wear that crap for a second, so I decided to leave it all at home. It would have been just a waste of time hauling all that crap everywhere knowing that I will not be wearing it. I figured I would deal with the consequences if anything came up, but there was no way in hell I was going to put on all that gear. My head has been pounding for 3 days now and that would only make it much worse than it already has been.
We headed off in two TMP vans and made the hour trek to Landstuhl. Once there we grabbed some snacks at the shoppette, then waited outside our company for over a half hour wondering what to do. We finally found out we were supposed to march out into the woods for training. This week's training was indeed in the woods and consisted of four stations. We were broke up into four groups and spent about 45 minutes at each station before rotating.
I never really care for sergeant's time training especially because it almost always pertains to stuff I'll never use. Today was a little different…don't get me wrong, I still didn't want to be out there, but we covered some stuff that may be handy if something bad were to ever happen. The first station was preventing shock, the second station about 50 feet away was how to treat a wound, the third was what to do with injured in an active combat situation, and the fourth was on CPR.
We've done all this training at some point before, but it's good to have a refresher on it. It is also stuff that we may come across in our normal life and knowing how to treat for shock or perform CPR could save someone's life. What I don't think is necessary is the full battle rattle for everyone. It just seemed totally retarded that they even required everyone to wear it. As soon as we got to each station everyone would take it off, then we would start the class. It was pointless to make everyone wear it at all. The second thing is forcing everyone to drive out to Landstuhl. We spent over two hours of the day just driving, so we could attend classes that could easily be done in a conference room or even our office.
After we finished the training we drove over to Ramstein air base and had lunch. The base is only about 10 minutes away and has the big food court. By the time we got back to the office it was about 1500. When I went pee it was a dark orange…not a good color. I didn't drink a whole lot during training because we were outside without any bathrooms. Since there were females around we couldn't just "utilize the wood line". So I only ended up taking a few drinks. I could feel myself overheating…outside it was very hot. I headed over to the shoppette and purchased a liter of water and then headed back to the office and took off my top while drinking the water to hydrate myself and cool myself down.
We were let go at 1600 which was a nice surprise…except for 3 random people that had to stay for a piss test. I headed home and was planning to take my kids out for a little trip, but it was just too hot. We all ended up just staying in and watching some TV shows.
A long hot day…but tomorrow's Friday!!
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