Home, Home On The Range

"Home on the range" must have been written by an Army guy because that's exactly where we spent this entire week! I didn't know that there were so many ways to shoot a weapon. We did many different types of shoots with the M16 and the M9, we also did some damage with a 50 cal (pictured), a 240B machine gun, and a 249 machine gun. I love to shoot so I was obviously in heaven! All of this week was filled with 13+ hour days, many of which was spent in full combat gear, I could tell that I was 40 years old! The Motrin bottle made it's rounds in our barracks, many of the guys are in the same age group. The Drill Sergeants had a blast with us on our last shoot yesterday called a "stress shoot". You started in a Humvee in full combat gear. One of the instructors would bang on the door and asked the driver and passenger to get out, actually it was more yelling at the top of his lungs than asking. You then ran full speed, which is more of a fast walk with the extra weight on, to pick up 2 magazines of ammunition. After that you headed to 5 different scenarios of taking cover and firing. The "stress" came from the Drill Sergeants screaming at you the whole time, plus the heat. I thought I was in pretty good shape but quickly learned I was mistaken after that evolution! Overall the training has been great, but I'm very, very tired right now. I got a room at a local hotel, I'm icing the ankle and getting room service for the last time before we get cots, tents, and sand for a week or two. I really can't wait to get to the final place of deployment so I can relax! haha. That's about it for this week, a lot of hurry up and wait, but overall a lot of fun. Shayna I love and miss you, everyone else take care!

Above is a video of the firing line at the crew served weapons range. I was shooting the video, so I'm not shooting the machine guns!