This past week was called "War Week". The idea being that it is supposed to simulate a week of wartime conditions and simultaneously act as a final test combining all of our training up until this point. Needless to say, I did not expect it to be an easy week.
A couple quick captions: The top picture is my team before we headed out Sunday night (I'm in the back row, 4th from the right). The middle picture is just something my commander took on one of the few chances we got to sit down. The last picture is my team carrying somebody on the stretcher, little did we know at the start of the week that this would become a very familiar pose.
We spent the majority of the weekend leading up to the week getting all of our gear ready (when everyone wasn't trying to guess what we were going to be doing). Sunday the entire company was brought into an auditorium and the Company Commander explained our first mission. It was explained that there was information speculating several rocket launch points that we would be going to try and eliminate. As a company we would all walk 10 km to get into position, from that point each team had its own assignment. There are 4 teams in the company, two anti-tank teams, one reconnaissance team, and then my team which is supposed to be a sniper team.
We left around 11 PM on Sunday night and walked in two lines with the recon team leading the way. We walked for about 2 hours and then everyone began to break off into different directions. My team was in charge of climbing two tall hills/mountains and providing information/fire to the three other teams who would be storming the targets. When the entire scene had played out it was already 5 AM. At this point we no longer knew what to expect from the week, this was as much as we were told before hand...and this is when it really got fun.
From 5:30 Monday morning until around 8:30 me and the rest of my team had to carry someone on a stretcher in a simulated retreat. When we were finally finished with the stretcher we practiced storming a hill until around noon. After we stormed the hill we went back to carrying the stretcher, except this time we opened two stretchers (which cuts the number of people who can help switch out with you in half). We then preceded to carry the stretchers up and down hills in the dead heat for about 2 hours. At that point one of the smaller guys on the team named Chesterman got dehydrated. As awful as it sounds I think that sort of got our commanders' attention and they let us find a spot with some shade and sit down to rest for a while.
When it started to get dark we got up, put all of the gear back on (which in my case happens to be all of the gear for the light machine gun, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 pounds of ammunition that I had the pleasure of carrying around all week), and started walking. One of the less appealing sides of spending a week in the field is that there really is not much time scheduled for showering, and after hours of carrying people on a stretcher I tend to get a little sweaty. This has multiple downsides, however, the two most pertinent are that the nights quickly become much colder and secondly the wet clothes rubbing against your skin all day lead to sever chafing. By the time we had got to Monday night I was in some serious pain from where my vest had rubbed my sides raw.
As the night wore on we did a few more drills in which we practiced storming hills at night, and around midnight on Monday we recieved our first "meal." The contents of which were 1 and a half pieces of bread, 1/5 of a can of tuna for each person, 1/3 of a pickle, and a can of corn to be divided amongst all 17 of us. It sounds somewhat meager, but at that point I was actually not that hungry.
The rest of the week was more of the same. Tuesday morning around 5 AM we had another hike with the stretcher for about 2 and a half hours. We had another drill storming a hill until about 11 AM, however, at this point we ran into what I like to think was some luck. It became so hot that it was pretty unsafe for us to continue, so we found a tree and sat down until it cooled down. We were given our second meal Tuesday afternoon. It was more of the same, except at this point half of our bread had ants...it didn't seem to deter anyone. At which point we continued with the stretchers. Tuesday night we did a few drills with blanks in which we played the enemy for an opposing team and vice versa. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning was one of the harder "acts" (as our commanders referred to them) of the week. We carried two stretchers for 3 hours, one of which carrying our heavy machine gunnist, his machine gun (another almost 20 pounds), and our water.
Wednesday morning we had been without water from about 3 AM until around 9 AM. I was starting to get a headache and I mentioned it to our medic. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your take of it, Wednesday was the hottest day of the week. As a result, we spent most of the day light ours in the shade. When the water arrived I had some trouble drinking it. Every time I drank I threw it back up. The medic decided it best to give me an I.V. When you are hooked up to an I.V., much like in a hospital, there is a plastic cylinder that lets the medic see if the fluids are moving from the bag down into the tube. Apparently, my body drank the fluids so quickly that there were no drops in the tube, it was completely full for the duration of the I.V. The medic said he had never seen that happen before.
Wednesday afternoon we had our third and final meal. This time the bread had spots of mold on it. I don't know about everyone else but at least for me at this point I was so hungry my stomach was starting to throb. I laughed as I watched people after the meal scrounging in the dirt for pieces of corn or tuna that others had dropped.
When we were asked to start moving again we opened up the stretchers this time while wearing gas masks. We hiked another 2 hours at the end of which we scaled a hill that is 200 meters literally straight up. We arrived around 10 PM. We had another drill with blanks in which my team and another team practiced taking over a hill together. When we finished around 1 AM, everyone filled up their water and got ready for the 10 km hike back to the base...this time carrying stretchers.
We carried one stretcher back for about 5 km and then stopped. After the first 5 km they told us to open another stretcher and put on our gas masks. We had to go the last 5 km with gas masks while carrying two stretchers. We finally got back to the base around 4 or 4:30 AM.
All I can say is that I am glad the week is over. It was our last week of Advanced Training and after the upcoming week, in which we give back all of our gear, we will be starting Navigation training as the first phase of Special Forces Training.
One of my friends gave his camera to our commander, who took a lot of pictures throughout the week. I am going to try and get him to give me some copies and I'll try and put some pictures up next week.
We spent the majority of the weekend leading up to the week getting all of our gear ready (when everyone wasn't trying to guess what we were going to be doing). Sunday the entire company was brought into an auditorium and the Company Commander explained our first mission. It was explained that there was information speculating several rocket launch points that we would be going to try and eliminate. As a company we would all walk 10 km to get into position, from that point each team had its own assignment. There are 4 teams in the company, two anti-tank teams, one reconnaissance team, and then my team which is supposed to be a sniper team.
We left around 11 PM on Sunday night and walked in two lines with the recon team leading the way. We walked for about 2 hours and then everyone began to break off into different directions. My team was in charge of climbing two tall hills/mountains and providing information/fire to the three other teams who would be storming the targets. When the entire scene had played out it was already 5 AM. At this point we no longer knew what to expect from the week, this was as much as we were told before hand...and this is when it really got fun.
From 5:30 Monday morning until around 8:30 me and the rest of my team had to carry someone on a stretcher in a simulated retreat. When we were finally finished with the stretcher we practiced storming a hill until around noon. After we stormed the hill we went back to carrying the stretcher, except this time we opened two stretchers (which cuts the number of people who can help switch out with you in half). We then preceded to carry the stretchers up and down hills in the dead heat for about 2 hours. At that point one of the smaller guys on the team named Chesterman got dehydrated. As awful as it sounds I think that sort of got our commanders' attention and they let us find a spot with some shade and sit down to rest for a while.
When it started to get dark we got up, put all of the gear back on (which in my case happens to be all of the gear for the light machine gun, somewhere in the neighborhood of 50-60 pounds of ammunition that I had the pleasure of carrying around all week), and started walking. One of the less appealing sides of spending a week in the field is that there really is not much time scheduled for showering, and after hours of carrying people on a stretcher I tend to get a little sweaty. This has multiple downsides, however, the two most pertinent are that the nights quickly become much colder and secondly the wet clothes rubbing against your skin all day lead to sever chafing. By the time we had got to Monday night I was in some serious pain from where my vest had rubbed my sides raw.
As the night wore on we did a few more drills in which we practiced storming hills at night, and around midnight on Monday we recieved our first "meal." The contents of which were 1 and a half pieces of bread, 1/5 of a can of tuna for each person, 1/3 of a pickle, and a can of corn to be divided amongst all 17 of us. It sounds somewhat meager, but at that point I was actually not that hungry.
The rest of the week was more of the same. Tuesday morning around 5 AM we had another hike with the stretcher for about 2 and a half hours. We had another drill storming a hill until about 11 AM, however, at this point we ran into what I like to think was some luck. It became so hot that it was pretty unsafe for us to continue, so we found a tree and sat down until it cooled down. We were given our second meal Tuesday afternoon. It was more of the same, except at this point half of our bread had ants...it didn't seem to deter anyone. At which point we continued with the stretchers. Tuesday night we did a few drills with blanks in which we played the enemy for an opposing team and vice versa. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning was one of the harder "acts" (as our commanders referred to them) of the week. We carried two stretchers for 3 hours, one of which carrying our heavy machine gunnist, his machine gun (another almost 20 pounds), and our water.
Wednesday morning we had been without water from about 3 AM until around 9 AM. I was starting to get a headache and I mentioned it to our medic. Fortunately, or unfortunately depending on your take of it, Wednesday was the hottest day of the week. As a result, we spent most of the day light ours in the shade. When the water arrived I had some trouble drinking it. Every time I drank I threw it back up. The medic decided it best to give me an I.V. When you are hooked up to an I.V., much like in a hospital, there is a plastic cylinder that lets the medic see if the fluids are moving from the bag down into the tube. Apparently, my body drank the fluids so quickly that there were no drops in the tube, it was completely full for the duration of the I.V. The medic said he had never seen that happen before.
Wednesday afternoon we had our third and final meal. This time the bread had spots of mold on it. I don't know about everyone else but at least for me at this point I was so hungry my stomach was starting to throb. I laughed as I watched people after the meal scrounging in the dirt for pieces of corn or tuna that others had dropped.
When we were asked to start moving again we opened up the stretchers this time while wearing gas masks. We hiked another 2 hours at the end of which we scaled a hill that is 200 meters literally straight up. We arrived around 10 PM. We had another drill with blanks in which my team and another team practiced taking over a hill together. When we finished around 1 AM, everyone filled up their water and got ready for the 10 km hike back to the base...this time carrying stretchers.
We carried one stretcher back for about 5 km and then stopped. After the first 5 km they told us to open another stretcher and put on our gas masks. We had to go the last 5 km with gas masks while carrying two stretchers. We finally got back to the base around 4 or 4:30 AM.
All I can say is that I am glad the week is over. It was our last week of Advanced Training and after the upcoming week, in which we give back all of our gear, we will be starting Navigation training as the first phase of Special Forces Training.
One of my friends gave his camera to our commander, who took a lot of pictures throughout the week. I am going to try and get him to give me some copies and I'll try and put some pictures up next week.
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