Instructor Me - (Germany) Day 324

Our platoon working on modern army combatives moves for PT this

morning while I watched and took some pictures...LOL

This morning's PT was combatives. Those of us on profile were required to go and watch instead of heading to the gym and getting an actual workout. So we arrived at the racquetball court in Campbell Barracks and proceeded to watch everyone roll around with each other. The army combative training (called Modern Army Combatives) tries to incorporate a little of MMA style fighting into our training. I don't have anything against this, in fact I'm a huge fan of MMA. I don't know how much good it does anyone though when we only train for about an hour a month or so. I think for it to be really useful, we would need to do it on a daily, or at least weekly basis to get any good at it. Unfortunately I can't do much of anything except watch…if only I was younger and not broken.

At work this morning I was told that I was giving our sergeant's time training for this Thursday. The training…giving everyone a hand receipt holder's brief. This is the same brief I gave my customers yesterday. No problem, I brought up the PowerPoint slides and just went around the room having people read each slide. I would pause here and there giving some of my own commentary, my boss would have me pause as well while he gave some extra commentary. It was painless and pretty easy. 

When we finished I had a little time to do a bit of schoolwork before lunch. I had lunch in my car as usual…eat, read, listen to music, nap. Back in the office I had to do some required online training that everyone has to finish before the Thanksgiving break. I had the training on, but with all the noise I could barely tell what was going on with the training. No big deal though, SPC JayZ was there with me when I took the test and he had just finished passing it…so he gave me some tips to help me pass as well.

I then had to inventory a safe that was opened, but during the process I came across a number of discrepancies from the previous inventory. We had to go through and fix everything that was done before…let's just say SGT Steroids is not very good with the details. It's all fixed now though.

I also had to speak with another special agent in the afternoon. This special agent was questioning me about SPC JayZ about his clearance. So I had to let him know what I know about SPC JayZ, which isn't actually too much because we really don't hang out a lot. After that it was about time to clean up and head out.

M3 Lab (AIT - Fort Gordon) Day 131

A photo of me on a laptop in the M3 lab with the young Hawaiian to the left.

(The lighting is mostly red in the lab to make it more "real" I guess)

The hall guard woke me up early today at 4:15 and said to get dressed in ACUs and see the sergeant. I asked him "what for" and he said he didn’t know. So I got up and got ready, but one thing that I’ve learned not to do when I’m forced out of bed early is not to go pee. There were about 10 of us at RBK that had to get up early. We were told to get in the duty van and it took us to Charlie company where we were told we had to do a pee test. This time I was ready to go and stepped up near the front of the line. I went and got it over with quick...no more waiting and drinking water and waiting and drinking more water.

There was a chick there who was obviously on some sort of medication. She ended up falling off the chair and just stayed passed out on the floor! She was totally out of it. I’m not sure how they planned on getting her to pee in a cup.

I then met up with PFC Metal and the young Hawaiian to go to the medical clinic. PFC Metal had to setup another appointment for his ears and the young Hawaiian and I had to get our smallpox shot checked out. The doctor took a look at it and said yep, it looks normal (it looks like a huge puss filled zit on my shoulder). I mentioned how sick I’ve become since getting the shot and he said it’s normal...great. If I don’t get any better by Friday I may head in there and get checked out again.

Today in our M3 class we went to the lab. We worked in teams to setup and connect a network and computers together. It was basically what we’ve been setting up in the Cisco Packet Tracer simulator, but with real equipment. We even had to take shifts guarding the door to the classroom with a rifle. Anyone that wanted to come in had to show their ID.

The exercise took the entire day and we still didn’t quite finish. We made some good progress, but not all of the teams were able to get everything completed.

It’s Tuesday and like every other Tuesday we have mandatory training. This time it was MAC (Modern Army Combatives). Me and everyone else who just got the smallpox shot were unable to participate, so we just hung out in the Charlie day room watching TV until the training was finished. When PFC Metal came back he said it was pretty stupid training and we took off to RBK to call it a night.

A photo of the lab showing two of the work areas

Our MOS-T sergeant running some cable through the raised
flooring in the M3 lab.