#116 - Victory Forge - day 1

I am out at Victory Forge, and have successfully completed the 11.5 mile road march (yup, they decided that 10 miles wasn't far enough for us). The road march sucked, plain and simple. I kept up pretty well until we hit a stretch of hills and deep sand. Hiking in deep sand for about two miles was about as fun as it sounds. It had to fall to the back of the formation for awhile, but I finished ok.

We just had MREs for lunch. This was the only time I've actually eaten most of its contents, as I was ravenous after that road march.

We unfortunately had our battle buddies out here chosen for us by the Drill Sergeants, so I was not able to share a hooch with Newman. I am back again with my assigned battle buddy, White. It think it will be ok, as we're only here for a week... right?

We are about to dig our hasty fighting positions (foxholes). Guess I'm going to burn off some of the calories from the MRE!

I just finished digging my fighting position, as well as a hole to hide my duffel bag and rucksack in. Unfortunately we only had these e-tools to use, and no real shovels were available. Darn! As an archaeologist, that would have been my opportunity to shine. If it's one thing I can do well, it's digging holes... if only I am afforded the right tools for the job. Nevertheless, I seem to have surprised some folks at my ability to dig, even with the crappy e-tool.

I'm not sure what the rest of the day holds, other than chow and putting up our hooches. Tonight our DS has threatened to keep us up, maybe all night. We may be attacking other platoons. Last night the moon was nearly full, so hopefully we won't trip and kill ourselves in the dark.

Of course everyone is waiting for us to be gassed. I've heard that it can happen at inopportune times like during chow, and when you are sleeping. I can't say that I am looking forward to that.

At least digging in the sand was relatively easy. The only issue is just trying to avoid the ever-present fire ant. I forgot how much I really dislike fire ants.

...

It is 6:16pm and we just finished eating chow. We had a good scare while eating. I saw the 1SG walk up with an evil smile on his face and throw a canister right at me. Smoke started to come out of it. Shit! I immediately put my plate of food down, took off my kevlar and glasses, and put on my gas mask. I tightened the straps, and cleared and sealed it. The canister turned out to be a smoke bomb instead of CS gas. That didn't prevent most people from screaming and running, however. Even though I misidentified the canister type, I was still happy that I remained calm. After we received the "all clear" message and resumed eating, I realized that my hands were shaking. So much for being cool, calm and collected, huh?