8-23
1322
Dear Aqizzar,
Life continues here at Ft. Know. We've started to look at it as a downhill battle and 25 days left until the end of the Basic Phase and Family Day. My parents have decided to drive down
to for it. Myself and my father seem to be on better terms now that I've left.
We're starting to get used to some of the more technological sights, instead of the bark-up iron sights that all M4s pack. Unfortunately, there aren't enough to go around, so we've got to pass around 1
st Platoon's weapons when we fire. M68 CCO is a really cool accessory, irregardless of where one's head is, you just point the dot at a target between 300 and 50m and pull the trigger. I had a little trouble focusing on it with the recommended 2 eyes open method, so I've switched to sighting with just my right. I think it'll work pretty well, overall. We haven't had many rounds to fire, 20 yesterday and 20 today. The sight wasn't zeroed on any of the rifles, so no one was hitting much.
We've been firing a lot of rounds thus far. I estimate 800 or so for me. It's a new Basic program. We haven't done anything with blanks or dummies, nothing but 5.56mm Nato ball. The round barely kicks at all, so it's pretty easy to shoot. We're also doing some night firing stuff. We get up early, go do some PT, and eat chow like usual, then we sit around and clean until after lunch. Then we go to a range (by bus, thankfully). We fire a few rounds in daylight, taking all of three minutes per person. After that, we sit on the bleachers until it gets dark, seven hours or so, interrupted by getting food in the field. We blunder about trying to find a line for the NVG's (only one platoon's works) [Aq: night vision goggles] then fire a few more rounds. Finally, we go back to the barracks, missing a few hours of sleep. The few seconds with the NVG's and lasers are really cool though.
Other than that, I go from misery and depression to hope and contentment relatively often. I bombed a 2 mile practice tun this morning. The DS is going to try to
teach improve my running technique, but I'm worried. I need a time of 16:30 to pass Thursday's PT test. If I have to, I'll ignore any pain, but I can't do a scoody [Aq: wha?] thing when my lungs and throat start to close up except hope my inhaler helps. Homefully, the DS will be able to help.
Not much else to say, life's boring on these bleachers, and my handwriting sucks. We're not allowed to talk loudly, at risk of PT, so there's lots of pen and paper games going on. Just taught and beat my battle buddy at that game with the grid of dots. It kill 45 minutes or so.
I asked Barbarossa to get it for me, but I haven't received a letter from him yet. Could you send me Toady's PO box address? It tried to set my checking account to give my (sadly small) monthly donation, but I'm not positive that it works. Haven't actually got any mail since last Friday, but I'm fairy sure that there's a big stack to get handed out, when we're not at the range half the night. Morale's high and there's less than a month until Basic phase ends.
-Yours truly,
Kaseman
Strife26
Author
Topic: Life and Times of Strife26 (Read 161351 times)