Downstairs at 0540 at the squad office for ice sheets. The “chill” in the air at 70 degrees is definitely noticeable.
LT Sadoun leads PT, we have an ab and lower body work out with flutter kicks, multiple variations of crunches and partner resisted sit ups and ability group sprints. Off to chow and a little down time till weapons draw at 0830. 4th PLT PL tried to bully their way into taking our place. LT James our PL for the week stood fast and we had our draw done in 2 mins! LT Kwia gave a brief on Liberia’s army. It was very fascinating and little known how US involvement in the past several years has literally turned there country around from civil war to a relativity stable country. LT Kwia is one of a very few officers being trained by the US to lead their new army.
SSG Dunfee gave us the download on the DA31 for BOLCIII and what he was expecting for weapons turn-in. BOLCII is requiring us to claim graduation day as our first day of leave –not cool!
I then worked on a detail cleaning up the squad room for the next cycle, what a mess! I received my leadership counseling from SFC Kerr for my PSG duties last week. It was very informal working thur each of the Army values and how they related to my responsibilities. Basically SFC Kerr was looking for me to relate a particular scenario I faced and how I dealt with. The rating scale is 1-4 with 4 being above average. I scored about 50% 4’s and 50% 3’s so I good to go at this station.
My unit had given me a job list of about 120 pre-mob tasks that need to be complete be for deploying next year, I took the list to SFC Kerr and he was able to mark off about 75% which will be a HUGE time saver!
I took my M4 down to SFC Dunfee for a the first run thru, I somehow hoped for a first time go but that illusion was quickly shattered. A few minor cosmetic things to touch up and I should be good to go. The armoror in OCS doesn’t even measure up to this standards! –Not a bad thing ether.
Bottom line is the cadre want the downtime between the next startup so they will make sure the LTs take care of everything possible.
I help LT James make a run to Little Caesars for a load of “Hot and Nows” for the PLT so we can keep them cleaning weapons instead of breaking for chow in the defac. “LT Ninja” has to be given a 30 min counseling lesson by LT Seitz about not order other LTs around and talking with his moth full of pizza drinking straight from the Pepsi 2-little bottle!
We completed turn-for the day and were released at a reasonable time. LT Grams and I headed to Commandos surplus to pick up 41 BOLCII tabs for graduation and a hair cut (Note: the haircut place next to Commandos is the best in town!) We then headed to Texas Roadhouse at exit 10 to meet up with a dozen other LTs for some good steak and good times.
Tomorrow AM is the BN run with 2 Co’s of 6 PLTs each in formation, this will be fun! I still have to catch up on last week blog, crate the picture CD and pack all my stuff tomorrow –ah!
18 September 2007
BOLCII Day 31: Out process II
17 September 2007
BOLCII Day 30: Outprocess I
Sunday night I got back from Augusta about 8pm and dumped all my stuff out. I had taken advantage of LT Deriks’ laundry service this weekend for $10 a load and cleaning CIF/turn-in so I didn’t have to worry about getting back earlier and going to the on post laundry CIF machines.
I also had to complete a peer eval for the squad which was difficult for me. You rank them 1-10 or what ever then explain why you picked the top tree and bottom three. My last chopice was very clear but the others were not, I felt like I blue falcon’d the other two last place LTs.
I went thru and organized all my platoon issue for turn-in Monday; MOLLE vest, canteen and, mag pouches, blank adapter, mags, IBA, IBA plates, elbow and knee pads and reference books.
I dumped my two duffels of CIF out and went thru double checking I still had everything, that took awhile. I am so glad I have home unit issue gear!
0600 PT, we divided the PLT into three teams for soccer, football and ultimate Frisbee. Boy was this a nice break and still a good workout!
After chow we waited on other PLTs for our weapons draw and then brought them up to the 3rd floor for cleaning. LTs broke out the radios and we went to work. Over the weekend I bought a can of foam shaving cream and had had my M4 looking like new in no time (trick I learned from Basic Training) just wet down the m4 with water then spray and brush the shaving cream everywhere, it lifts the oil and carbon right off. All the other LTs immediately became interested in this time saving technique and in no time, my can was depleted with promises of “I’ll buy you another one!”
About 1130 LT James decided to turn weapons back in for CIF return, he had chow and load a bus up for the short trip. It was actually fairly painless, LT James put in front of the line because I am working a PLT picture CD and once they found my paperwork I dumped my gear in a shopping cart and went down the line handed stuff back. The civilians where very reasonable, the one ting I was missing; a strap for a 2Qt they did not ding me on.
We walked back to the barracks as soon as each of us was done. I ran our PLTs pictures over to C Co as they are making a BN picture CD
By the way the IOBC guys did not have CIF turn in. They will keep their gear thru the end of IOBC course. They got to put on PTs for the day and clean crew served weapons. What fun –NOT!
By that time it was 1700, we fell out for for formation and after a few words form CPT McGinty, where released.
I went downtown to a coffee house with a few other LTs and knocked out a bunch of paperwork work for SBOLC.
14 September 2007
BOLCII Day 29: Last missions
LT Corina weighs in with 240B before rolling out.
More tonight, I promise!
12 September 2007
BOLCII Day 28
04 September 2007
BOLCII Day 22: Land Nav and back at the FOB
Note: Day 21 was Labor day. C Co got a 3 day weekend.
0345 formation (yawn) we had packed our rucks, duffels for the FOB the night before s well as an assault pack for the land nav course. Loaded the bus and eat MREs on the way. I brought some nutribars to snack on as I knew I would not be hungry enough to eat the main course that early. Also Gatorade in the camel-bak. We were all nervous given the problems we all had on the practice course.
We did our land nav on Yakee South (practice was on Yakee North) in total about (12) 1000m grid squares.
It took a little long to get rolling this time, you could recheck your pace count and double check your compass. The company formed up and the cadre issued maps (color and 100% better then the B&W photo copies we received for practice!) Each LT was issued a score card with their name on it with different point and in different order to prevent cheating. No talking allowed but red lights OK (remember your head lamp LED!) Each PLT received a different start time and we immediate spread out on the ground in front of the cadre shack to take advantage of the utility lighting. I was one on the last in PLT to finish plotting at about 25 mins. I plotted everything and then rechecked everything. As I did not had a warm fuzzy from last time. Based on my point I chose to angle of attack verses dead reckoning. I plotted pace count from major intersection and trails and distance in for the first (6) and decided I would adjust fire on my last two based on METTC. I struck out at a fast range walk passing most of the LTs on the road. I could already see a number of them stopped on the road re-plotting –don’t do this! Take the extra time at the start point. I had some trouble finding my first one which is never a good sign but finally after double checking the map I went back on the trail to the main road and re paced counted and still… nothing! My frustration level was rising, I looked up and on a small hill there and it was! (these point are not reflective) Off to the next one, My pace count did not match the map or the trails, I rechecked everything, found what I thought was the trail and aging… nothing in the area! I looked to the right and 100m I could just make a point out. The course is not self correcting (no stamped grids) but others have “written” grids on them. The grid written on this one said it was about 200m South of the one I needed, so I headed off North, I then ran into a major terrain feature that did not match up but did tell me the point was the one I wanted regards less of what some one had written –Lessoned learned here and through out the course, trust your skills and equipment, not what people have written on the posts or you will fail.
I am now at the FOB and need to hit the rack for live fire ops tomorrow. I will fill in the rest and catch up on a couple of days later. Long story short I managed to get 8 of 8 points correct with 10 minutes to spare. We had about 8 fail from the PLT who will need to pass as it is a graduation requirement.
03 September 2007
BOLCII Day 19 & 20: 24 Hr MOUT Ops
Off to showers and chow then on the bus with full battle rattle plus (2) MREs off to Mckenny MOUT site for more shooting house training. This one has the full town with houses, buildings, church, jail etc. SSG Vega and SSG Butler ran concurrent training in two different buildings with squad size with two fire teams and Opposing Force (OPFOR) so we could put into use what we had learned the previous day. Great training! But like many things at BOLCII you will get what you put into it. If you want to lay around and nap you can find a way. If you want to learn important 
stuff that could save your and your Soldiers lives you need to take initiative and make en effort to be in the middle of the action.On a “can you believe this!?” note, LT “Ninja” (fake name to protect his identity) fired a blank off in-between training to “see if his M4 would fire –wrong answer! We jumped all over him for it.
MRE about 1200, more training then about 1700 we ran a quick PLT mission to assault the big blue building. I was on the squad providing security. The PL and PSG did not have much time to organize but it went off reasonable well.
1800-2000 Time for a tasty MRE and a few minute of rack time where ever you could find it. 2000 we formed up in the town square and CPT Mcginty told us we would be conducting Simunitions training by squad. The cadre issued us (12) simunition upper receivers/barrels and (2) mags each for us to swap out and put on our M4s.
NOTE: One note of concern is the cadre did not issue us the special Simunitions helmets. Whether they forgot or they were not available I do not know but the IOBC guys who had been running Simunitions missions in the same town all day looked at us like we were crazy! If you bring your make sure your bring your clear pro-glasses, gloves, if you bring your own IBA, bring your neck, and groin protection even if they don’t put it out. Check out http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIvfUoTUZGE and you will see how much these rounds can hurt if you get shot in the “wrong” place! I improvised some groin protection by using a carbineer on the front of my belt with a small pack and tied a doubled up ACU handkerchief around my face in case I took a face shot so it would not leave a bloody welt.
There was a massive cluster as a rain front rolled in while 1st SQD ran their mission. We had to secure everyone’s gear including their sensitive items, move them to one building them move them to another building, hours were lost as LTs tried to find their stuff. Lesson learned INSIST to the cadre NCOs to secure your gear inside a building.
LT “Ninja” struck again buy refusing to die while OPFOR and continuing to fire Simunitions point blank and trying to take head shots. One LT finally drop kicked him and that was the end of that.
It was 2330 by the time 4th squad got called up, LT Miles stayed our squad leader and was given 20 mins to plan with the squad. The OPFOR was also given 20 mins to plan. We talked and LT Wismann was chosen lead A tm and I was chosen for B tm. We agreed which team would lead and go left/right etc. We did not have our PVS-14 night vision so we agreed to enter each room using a brief burst of white light (I suggest buy/bring a high output LED converted AA maglite) to disorientate the OPFOR. We test fired our simunition M4 as their had been problems with them jamming up on the first round. We also conducted some brief rehearsals.
Time hack was called and we immediately went tactical and stacked up outside the building door, A tm went in first right and we went left clearing the first floor. A tm went up the stairs and saw an obstacle outside the 2nd floor door on the right, suspecting a trap LT Wismann wisely closed the door and we conferred a minute, he suggested A tm go thru the left door as we and breached and thru assaulted the right door. A tm immediately took fire and lost (3) of their (4) members, we blew thru the left door, I kicked the obstacle out of the way and we immediately went to work clearing the hallway and rooms, I called for a high/low on almost all the situations, it took more time but my team was the only team in the PLT to neutralize all OPFOR and bring all my team members out alive. There was a point of confusion when the SQD Ldr told me all OPFOR had been neutralized and we could stop clearing. We had one more room to go and I made a command call to clear it anyway which was a good thing as there was an unexpected EPW to deal with. We then had an After Action Review (ARR)
The PLT was formed up to coordinate the next mission. The PLT would move and setup a patrol base from 0100-0400 and setup off for the PLT night mission.
CPT Mcginty called for OPFOR volunteers and I was not going to miss this opportunity so I yanked LT James out of the squad and made a bee line for the rally point. There was (6) OPFOR and CPT Mcginty gave us some basic requirements and left the execution totally up to us. We went around and setup the building the way we wanted; including moved a refrigerator to block the main stair well and turning all lights out as teh PLT was to all have PVS-14s on. We setup our PVS-14s (except for mine which some loser LT had broken!) We then racked out for a few hours in the same room with all sorts of creepy-crawlers on the floor in our sweat drenched uniforms.
An hour or so into it I heard one of the metal pipes we had leaded against the doors as an early warning device crash and hit the floor. I open one eye and watched to see what would happen, I saw some of the IOBC guys dart thru the door and look at us with their PVS-14. Thankfully, they did not disturb us although I could hear them continue to run ops in the area. 0330 we were up, made final adjustments and found a hiding place.
After a few minutes I got bored and decided to have some fun. I poked my head out one of the West windows and saw 2nd squad on the roof of the jail below me providing support by fire. I figured it wouldn’t be right for me to fire at them since I was “dead” but I decided a “ghost” could throw empty shell casings. I darted between the six windows, pitching casings on the guys below causing mass confusion as I made myself visible and darted away. 2nd squad was unable to confirm if the 3rd floor where I was had been cleared as 4th squad was now gone so they kept yelling the challenge word then firing off a few rounds. It was all I could do to keep from rolling on the floor laughing.
Lessons Learned: PCC/PCI on all PVS-14s during the day and have extra batteries. PLT needs to move tactically to assault. Do not let the grenade simulator derail the plan. Have PLT SGT setup a CCP right away.
Another squad finally came up to move me to the CCP where I was searched and waited for end-ex. CPT Mcginty lead the AAR then about 0630 we loaded buses for the FOB. I made a bee line for the showers and chow then packed all my gear and racked out with the rest of the PLT till 1100. We slept like the dead.
We had one LT showed the sign of heat stress by puking his guts out and shallow breathing/heat rate. On of the LTs kept an eye on him all night checking his vitals every hour and he eventually recovered without a trip to the hospital.
Those of us who had to complete SRM and those competing in MOUT loaded a bus, waited for an hour, loaded anther bus and finally moved out Booker range, We knocked out firing SRM and stood by to clean the range (3rd PLT cleans again!) we stood byand waited, cleaned the shooting house after the MOUT teams, attmpted to load a bus but were told 3rd was last in the order of march, ah well. We finally got back to the barracks (home sweet, home!) took our gear up to our rooms, cleaned weapons, had chow and waited to be released. The 1SG "actual" (real 1SG) decided to do a spot check on our weapons and happened to pick one that did not meet the standard (!) so I was appointed OIC to quickly mobilized a team to perform a level 1 re-clean. We knocked them out while the cadre breathed down our neck, as they needed to turn in a Co-wide weapons count.
