LandNav Execution (Basic Training) Day 21

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.

In formation today DS Midget was walking through checking everyone out. He stopped at me and ask if I shaved this morning. I said “Yes Drill Sergeant, I have aggressive facial hair.” Surprisingly that was the first time I’ve been asked.  Our normal DSs know that I’m older and I’m a hairy dude…they know I shave every morning. 

We then loaded buses that took our entire company to a wooded area. After we ate chow we were split into 4 man teams. Each team was given instructions and a compass. We had a starting point and had to go so many meters at a certain degree from the compass. Once we thought we were there we had to look for a number on a tree. It was actually pretty cool. No DSs around, we could talk and relax as we were walking through the woods. We managed to find 4 out of 5 correctly. That last one we ended up in between two of the signs and we picked the wrong one. We still passed though. We had MREs for lunch. Every time we have those you always here people asking if there is anything they don’t want. If someone doesn’t want something from their MRE there are usually 4 to 5 people who surround him like vultures for it.

After lunch there is still one squad still missing n the woods from another platoon. LOL. The DSs ended going out to find them. 

We ended up having some field classes such as how to make a hooch (tent) from our ponchos and battle buddy combat movements.

We waited until 21:00 to do the nightime LandNav. The cadre and DSs got everyone freaked out by telling them all about the wild animals that come out at night. Finding the signs at night were a bit harder, but we got 2 out of 2 for our group which is just awesome. A lot of groups didn’t find both. It’s going to be a late night tonight, but at least we don’t have to wake up until 6:30am. Two squads got lost during the night LandNav. One from our platoon and one from another platoon. This put us behind schedule. The DSs were eventually able to round them up. Two of those semi trucks with a people carriers in the back picked us all up. We made it back to the bay and showered by 23:00. Unfortunately I have CQ duty tonight... a wasted hour of no sleep.

Random Quote: “It’s called a ‘Capital Dump’ drill sergeant!” (Pvt. Lurch explaining what it’s called when you poop so much it fills up the toilet.)