#69 - Victory Tower

This morning we completed our tactical road march, which was somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 miles roundtrip - not too bad. Our destination was Victory Tower. I rapelled down a 15' wall, a 60' wall, climbed a 60' ladder (part of it with a rope), scambered across several rope bridges, and climbed down a 70' cargo net. The last was the scariest obstacle, as my arms felt like rubber, and I was afraid that I was going to let go and fall to the ground.

While I was climbing across the ropes, I had the displeasure of watching one guy fall into the cargo net in a bad way. The Drill Sergeants had been harrassing him up to that point. He was in a hurry to make it across, and fell in such a way that his leg or foot was broken in the fall. Everything shut down while the paramedics came, and they had to actually winch him out of the cargo net on a stretcher. Our company's 1LT was also injured at Victory Tower while doing the rappel and had to be taken away by ambulance.

...

I am still hoping that it won't be too long before we are able to receive mail, as it would be a huge morale booster. The Drill Sergeants continue to tell everyone that they will be going to Iraq. Today we were shown a few dozen graphic photos of victims of roadside bombs. The photos were very upsetting, I will concede - seeing all manner of disfigurement, people missing heads, torsos ripped in half, mostly unrecognizeable hunks of jumbled flesh that once were a person. One girl in my platoon broke down and started crying hysterically when she saw the photos, and ran from the room. I have to admit that the photographs were really getting to most of us. It was just a rough day for many, physically and mentally exhausting.