Back to reality after a pleasant weekend. It was raining when we headed down for formation, not a good sign. Started off the day with a 3 mile run (some of it up a pretty steep hill). Then we drew our M4's and got ready for the day. For the morning we had classes in the M2, a .50 calibre machine gun that had been the mainstay of the US Military for coming on 90 years, and the M19, which is an automatic 40mm grenade launchers. This included taking apart and putting them back together (more tricky than it seems). These weapons are huge and when not mounted on a vehicle have a 60-70lb mounts. That took us up to lunch.
The afternoon was devoted to SRM. First we drew a magazine of 30 blanks and went through the motions that we would perform with live ammo. Then it was on to the range (which you can see in the background below) where we drew 3 30-round magazines. Then we performed a number of movements, facing techniques and just plain seeing a target and shooting from a dist of less than 25 meters (in most cases closer, we even shot a few from the 5 meter distance. This involves basically putting the red dot on the target and squeezing off 2 controlled rounds at the target. It was actually a pretty entertaining sequence since I can easily see why these are some very useful skills for the future, since a lot of engagements in Iraq are from close quarters so this is somewhat realistic. After that we helped police the brass (200 in the company * 90 rounds each..... = 18000 rounds expended today) and cleared off the range and returned our weapons. Then we waited around until we were released at 1600.
Monday, April 28, 2008
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