BOLC II - Week 3 - Day 3

Weapon Qualification day.

Started the day with a 60-120 running day. 60 seconds of sprinting at top speed and then jogging for another 120 seconds. Pretty good workout.

Then as we are the duty platoon for the day we had a hurried morning where we got our stuff together and walked over to the range (it was only about .5 miles away). Even walking in this gear is hot. Upon our arrival we set about some of the usual tasks of running a range (making sure that all support gear, like water, is set up, loading magazines, etc). I was a safety for an hour, then as we had members of the platoon qualify they rotated me out to qualify. Unfortunately for the first set dirt had gotten inside my weapon, so I suffered from a series of weapons jams that gave me a pitiful 7 hits. That coupled with the fact that I was still getting a hand around this whole kneeling position that we are supposed to use (the standard, 20 prone supported, 10 prone unsupported and 10 kneeling was a new one to me as when I went through basic it was 20 foxhole and 20 prone unsupported). After cleaning my weapon throughly I had to make a few more tries and then I qualified in the early afternoon. Pretty frustrating but now its over. Then we continued to run the range until we closed shop at 1600. We fired 18,500 rounds to qualify 180 soldiers (there were a few people at the end of the day who hadn't qualified, but they have a couple of more chances starting tomorrow.). A quick cleanup (we have to gather all the spent brass for turnin) and we moved back to the barracks.

more scenes from the range, not very exciting.

We did have one more task for the day. One of our cadre had his birthday today so a cake had been arranged. A pink one with a tiarra... Pretty funny but he was a good sport. Then off to bed as I have to get up at 0200 to do CQ for 2 hours. Joy.