Days 13, 14, 15, 16

Happiness is being behind a belt fed weapon!

Day 13 Thursday Machine Gun Day / Reflexive Fire / Stress Fire

Today was fun, we shot the M240 7.62mm, the M249 5.56mm, and the old faithful "Ma Deuce" at the heart thumping .50 cal or 14.7MM awesome. Unfortunately, with these weapons, there is never enough ammo to go around and we only got 25rnd per person to expend! Boy do they go fast!!!! Sad, but fun none the less.

M2 "Ma Deuce"

  M240

  

M249

Reflexive Fire was fun with lots of turning and shooting from the standing ready position. Stress fire was exactly that, we ran an "obstacle" course while shooting live rounds and the drill instructors were yelling at us.

Day 14 Friday Simulated night fire / Scenario Fire / Building Clearing/ IED Brief

A busy day however a bit relaxed. The night and simulated fire were all conducted in a darkened, "laser tag" building with rifles hooked up to a computer to monitor your "shooting" Kind of neat and an interesting business opportunity. building clearing was just your average class in the MOUT facility to learn how to clear a room or building if you had to. More or less a talk thought with a couple of hands on lessons. I never did kick down the door.

The IED brief was good, however the timing was poor, after lunch on a warm sunny afternoon after a long and busy week! Most of the class had a hard time staying awake which was unfortunate as the information delivered in the 2 hour class was good! This class should have been broken up with some of the more dramatic pieces being delivered the first day of the program to "shock" people into the reason why we are doing all of this training.

Day 15 Saturday Map Reading
Now this class should have been broken up in to smaller "chunks" and delivered from the start of the program. We should have had 4 hours of IED training vice 4 hours of map reading on a SATURDAY! ugh..

What was left of the day was used well and we rented some cars and explored our neighborhood in detail!

Day 16 Sunday Off Day
Not a whole lot was accomplished today other then mental recovery. Slept in late 730am. Went to the officers club for brunch, fantastic. A quick trip to the exchanges, dropped the rental cars off at the airport. Some phone calls, cab rides. Dinner was out on the town via the MWR van to Sumo's Japanese Steak house. My fried rice is still better!