Rainy Day at Ft. Benning

16 July 2011

Wake up was @ 0400 today. I forgot to mention that we had lights out last night at 2000 hours. I was excited to get around 6 1/2 hrs of sleep. I felt refreshed and ready to have a great Saturday. We went outside for PT @ 0545 and it was misting rain and actually a little cool. PT lasted about an hour and chow was at 0730.

Today, we began drills and exercises for BRM (Basic Rifle Marksmanship). We practice balancing a dime on the end of our rifle barrel while aiming and pulling the trigger. We also worked on keep our site picture by placing our rifles in a holding dot and siting them to a blank sheet of paper while someone moved a target on our command.

The highlight of the day was two-fold. The first was using the simulator. The simulator allowed us to lay in a prone position and fire a rifle (while also simulated recoil) to a target down range. The simulator was in a huge modular trailer (about the size of 3 trailer put together) and it had all of the details of a shooting range. For you golfer, imagine the golf simulators at the PGA Superstore and that would be a fair comparison. We stayed at the simulator for 2 hours and it helped tremendously with my grouping effort.

The second highlight of the day was getting to go to the PX (Post Exchange) and a haircut. What an experience. I only needed a few things (soap, paper, laundry detergent). The haircut was great, but before I got mine, this one guy in my platoon asked me what my wife thought about my hair turning gray at 29. I got a big kick out of that and told him that she tells me she likes it, but threatens to make me an appointment with a hair coloring specialist! (just kidding Jesica)

When finished with the haircut and PX, we marched back to the barracks (about 2 miles). We had been marching only 5 minutes when the bottom fell out. Needless to say, we were soaked. Some of my items got wet, but nothing was ruined. We got back to the barracks and cleaned our rifles. Chow was at 1900 and lights out at 2100. No fireguard or duties tonight! Rest here I come!

Matthew