WEEK TWO 25 AUG TO 30 AUG

More class room time. Learning about our business in SWA. This is high speed stuff, serious work, keeping our troops, assets and each other safe. There is a lot to it and I wish I could go into detail but most if it is "need to know" if you know what I mean.

More physical challenges. We now wear our 40 pound vests, minus the attachments, while training with Krav Maga. Our physical training includes 10 different stations with a variety of challenges such as, pushups of various configurations, crunches, ab work, squat thrusts, mountain climbers and much more. Our PT sessions last from 2.5 to 3 hours. We have two of those this week, Tuesday and Thursday, beginning at 0600.

We do vehicle searches each day. Each team drives in a convoy of vehicles. During our routes we my be attacked with a variety of scenarios much like what may happen in SWA. If we miss a planted explosive during the vehicle checks, we loose our vehicle for 24 hours and have to try and fit into other vehicles with a lot less room.

Now for a brief snapshot of our ten person team:

We picked our team name to be the "Badgers." I am Badger 3.
What is a badger you ask? Here is a wikpedia definition: Badger is the common name for any animal of three subfamilies, which belong to the family Mustelidae: the same mammal family as the ferrets, the weasels, the otters, and several other types of carnivore. There are eight species of badger, in three subfamilies: Melinae (badgers of Europe and Asia – see links in species list below), Mellivorinae (the Ratel or honey badger), and Taxideinae (the American badger). The Asiatic stink badgers of the genus Mydaus were formerly included in the Melinae, but recent genetic evidence indicates that these are actually Old World relatives of the skunks (family Mephitidae).
Typical badgers (Meles, Arctonyx, Taxidea and Mellivora species) are short-legged and heavy-set. The lower jaw is articulated to the upper by means of a transverse condyle firmly locked into a long cavity of the cranium, so that dislocation of the jaw is all but impossible. This enables the badger to maintain its hold with the utmost tenacity, but limits the jaw movement to hinging open and shut or sliding from side to side.

We have 9 men and one woman.
Of the 10 we have three officers.
I of course am the oldest. The next oldest is our superintendent who is 39
Our Det/CC is 37
The youngest is 23
Most of the people in our group are married with at least one child
They are extremely bright, committed, funny, capable and hard charging. These people play hard and they work hard.

It is an honor and a humbling experience to be in their presence. All but two of us are active duty troops. There are only two reservists in this class of 40. Reservists sometimes get a bad rap because of a few who have not represented the reserve force with honor. I was surprised to learn that some of my classmates were impressed with my choice of volunteering to take a deployment for an active duty person. My view, that is what I am here for. To help take the pressure off of the active duty force, who deploy and are tasked with challenges above and beyond the call of duty. Sounds corny but that is from the heart. This is what I believe.

I am not sure what they think of me being much older and not of a high rank. I try to take opportunities when people ask, to explain a little of my story and why I am doing what I am doing. Once I have that chance to explain, they seem to get it.

This week was full of greater physical and mental challenges.

On Wednesday we did our second ruk march. This time it was for 2 miles.

Our Detco (that is what we call our detachment commander) decided on Tuesday we would practice on Wednesday morning with our 40 pound vest.

We were given curfew Tue. night, 2100 hours in the sack.
No one was happy about that
We were up at 0430, and went on a 2 mile hike, in the dark with NVG (night vision
goggles) radio, water and vest.

What pissed people off the most was that the other groups were not doing anything like
this. That caused some grumbling and complaining. We talked it out, brought the issues to our chain of command and it all worked out fine. Had our Detco been a different type of character we could have seen a serious breakdown in morale and camaraderie. We have a great team and I would be honored to go to a combat zone with any of them. That said, we are human and all have a potential ugly side.

This little training exercise was the same day as the 2 mile ruck march. Bad plan when the day before were getting beat up for 2.5 hours in PT. But we survived to live another back breaking, shoulder aching, neck straining day. Ibuprofen is my friend.

Thursday we learned about orienteering (navigation) using a compass, a map, a protractor and luck.

Friday we were in the field from 0800 to 1800. We did two navigation courses. The first course was with a buddy (I had my detco with me) and uh, yep, he led the way. I think he wanted to run it but stickers, downed trees, marsh area and creeks slowed that plan down (thank God!).

The first course took about 2 hours. We had to find three markers in a 1600 to 2000 meter area. needless to say, the terrain was not flat, clear, smooth and easy. We were in thickets in the middle of Ft. Dix, thorns, some the size of a thumb nail cut us up bad, downed trees covered with growth so you could not see them, creating a bad ankle twisting or breaking scenario. Trying to shoot a straight azitmith and stay on course was pretty difficult. Ft. Dix is currently dealing with a Lyme Disease epidemic as well. Ticks were everywhere, in everything, on everything, no fun. At one point Don (in these writings I call him Don, but to his face I call him Sir because I respect the guy and of course it is proper) got his foot caught between two of those downed trees. Down he went, twisting his ankle. Not good when you are 175 lbs. (I have lost a little weight) and he is 240 lbs, 6'2". I helped him up and luckily he was able to walk. I can't imagine how I would have carried him out of there if he could not walk.