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In other news, Last Drill I was formally sworn in to the Massachusetts State Guard. It was a sudden, simple thing, I and 4 other recruits were asked to the front of the cabin which was our drill HQ that month, brought to attention, we raised our right hands, and all managed NOT to say, "I, and state your name" at the Captain's beginning of the oath
, and about a minute's worth of repeated lines, the assembled troops' round of applause and chorus of "HOOah"! , and we were Soldiers. On my way back to my seat, everyone was ready with a handshake and a word of congratulations. It was strange but cool; these people had only seen me for this and last drill, and now seemed a little more to accept me as one of them.
In fact, everyone I know from either martial arts class, or from work, who was former service, once they heard of my process of joining the MASG, surprised me at how happy they were to provide me any help they could , from advice, and support, one even took me to his range to get trained up on AR style rifles (which I just plainly don't like but which are of the type issued to US forces and therefore the type I must become accustomed to), wouldn't accept money for his ammo, a third person, a former coworker, when he learned that the MASG is strictly an unpaid, all-volunteer force, and that, therefore, minus weapon, mags and ammo in cases where we'd be issued them, we each had to buy the rest of our battle-rattle ourselves, even happily offered me his leftover gear!
The Marine Corps has a saying, "Once a Marine, Always a Marine", that we've all heard, but the sentiment is the same irrespective of service branch, and experiencing it first hand from people who've been there and offer help, just because, almost makes you feel like part of a larger family. It seems Soldiers, for the most part, really do take care of their own.
Anyway-That was to be the single, and only, easy part of my February drill.
There is only one worse feeling in the world than realizing you didn't pack enough gear.
Realizing that you packed ALL your gear and it still ain't enough.
In this case my friend Aaron and I learned too late after a brief outdoor class that our boots were not up to the tasks we would need to perform( We each had basic Corcoran all leather garrison boots).and I found that despite my having bought, and made use of, polypro longjohns, polypro sock liners AND wool socks that despite all this my feet began to freeze fairly fast in the inch deep snow and air temperature in the 20s.
To their credit, since the State Guard is now finally (FINALLY!) beginning to get funding, they did give us about 50 pairs of insulated Gore Tex boots.
SO of course who are the only two schmucks who can't find a pair to fit them.
That's RII-iight!
So while the main body of troops got to gear up and do outside maneuvers and keep in radio contact, it thusforth became our job to be the Command Post, in this case, he the radio operator, I the log keeper. And we did the job as best we could and swallowed the fact that outside was Land Navigation, Map/compass, and infantry/ambush patrol formation training, once in daylight, once at night, and this was what we came to drill for and it SUCKED THAT WE WEREN'T OUT THERE.
But we sucked it up because you have to learn how to be a Command Post too, and we could be useful that way.
And neither of us wanted to be the schmuck who made our team miss out on their training time because either of us had to be hiked back to the cabin to play "This Little Piggy Froze Solid".
And most especially neither of us wanted to be the cold-weather casualty that cast the MA State Guard in a bad light with the MA National Guard, whom our main mission is to support and assist within Massachusetts, and whose 181st infantry division we will be drilling with from March until at least September to help prepare them for their fall depolyment to Iraq, and neither of us wanted anything to happen which could harm such a great troop support opportunity by casting the State Guard as idiots who didn't even know when to come out of the cold.
So we used the downtime to train in map and compass, refresh on the phonetic radio alphabet, and, of course, be the command post for the four teams.
But the most rewarding, yet frustrating, exercise that day was bivouac training.
2 regular National Guard soldiers were our instructors, and after an inside classroom talk on cold weather injury, we then all went outside and got shown how to make a poncho bivvy.
For those of you unfamiliar with this process, making a poncho shelter in cold weather goes as follows:
You brush away the snow so no moisture from the ground can come up and get you (cold and dry is miserable enough, cold and WET gets life threatening in only about a matter of instantly), then down goes your ground cloth if you have one, then your sleeping MAT( which I bought and had), THEN your bags one inside the other. Then you unsnap your poncho so it's one rectangle about 6 foot by 3 foot, tie the hood shut with its neck cord so as to make the hood opening waterproof, then using your parachute cord/bungee cords/combo thereof( i just had paracord), tie off each corner to a tree or equivalent, then go round the hood and loop it over a higher branch or equivalent, and tie it off raised like a mini tent so that the corners are about 3-5 inches off the ground with the middle higher. You then pick the side you want to crawl under it from when its time to sleep, then brush stuff back near the other 3 to insulate it and you're done.
So anyway, it came to pass that we were given a choice: We could choose to either sleep in the cabin, or set up a poncho shelter outside and brave the Cold, Cold Woods.
And I get to thinking, I'm pissed off that I had to miss part of the outdoor training and dammit I'm gonna do SOMETHING outside this drill!
Right! Out goes Andy with his ALICE pack, LBE harness and sleeping stiuff, and I pick a sweet spot, and it takes me time, half an hour or so, maybe more since it's like, the first time I've ever done this, ever, amidst much working, wasting of paracord, and muttered thoughts of "I must be ****in' retarded", I have my poncho hooch up. It was light and in the 20s when i wrapped this up.
So I go grab the SGT whos in charge and gonna be checking us at night to make sure we don't like, die and stuff, I show him where its at and if i do say so it is an AWESOME hooch for my first ever hooch (i picked a spot in amongst many trees to break up the wind chill, took advantage of a natural dip in the ground to put my mat down, had a running( not stagnant) stream 15 feet to my left to fill my canteens if i wanted
) He even compliments me on it.
SO of course what happens after dark during chow.
The SGT, he comes back to me with a list/map of who's where, and now to be honest, now this is my own fault for not checking, i shoulda ****in' asked before i did it....but im 1-200 yds away from where the SGM wanted everyone in the same group so they could all be checked at once.
so i go find the Sergeant Major and I say "Sergeant Major...." and the foillowing exchange ensues:
"I was just told I'm not in the same group where you wanted"
"Yep"
"Since we were told to get our hooches up before dark and its now dark, does that mean i'm now inside?"
"Nope--get somebody to help you break it down and get it where it goes"
Now--you know me well enough at least to know im not an idiot, so i know better than to whine or complain in front of officers /senior NCOs. So while in the cabin finishing dinner, i simply nod acceptance like its no big deal.
But I won't lie to you, my friend Aaron graciously comes out to help me and as soon as we're out of earshot i won't kid you, my mouth became a sewer pipe.
*shrug* No matter. It's a soldier's lot in life to grumble, and his right, as long as he still gets the job done.
It is HERE, in the freezing pitch dark, with our blue-lens-covered crookneck flashlights, that I learn about the half hitch. Because once we got to my hooch, because my dumb *** knew no better at the time, all my paracord lines were knotted to the trees like an amateur cause, well,, i was. Did i mention the natural sunlight is totally gone from the sky now save for 2 or 3 lonely orange street lights nowhere near our position?
I understand it is good to practice light discipline and get used to moving in filtered/zero light. but you understand the blue lens was only BARELY enough to see what we were doing come time to untie paracord knots. So eventually we get that broke down and just roll most of it up.
Picture brave, heroic Andy.....................
.............................bumbling 150 yds westward, cussing his mouth off under his ragged breath, tripping over branches, snow hdden rocks and his own damn paracord, LBE dropping off his one arm, sleeping mat/bags half rolled in front of his eyes in a death grip attempt to keep it from unravelling any further, which fails.
Of course I can look back and laugh about it NOW..........
So we get there, and we find a spot, and we do the wholde brus/layer/spread/tie process again, and we're doin' OK, and we keep going and were almost done until suddenly we CANT FIND ANYTHING TO TIE THE LAST CORNER TO. I do not know how this escaped us but it did.
In a last desperate bid to save my hooch we go round looking for a rock to weigh the last corner down with. Only one problem--it's 9 PM, it's pitch dark and 17 degrees out and the rocks are frozen into the ground.
So we break the son-of-a-bitchin' thing down AGAIN.
We go to another spot, go through the whole aggravating process in the freezing pitch dark again, but this time it works. I get my change of clothes and full canteen and shove them down the foot of the bag so they warm up with me( out there, you change next AM, you change IN YOUR BAG, you dont get out) and we get back there with the Col. glad we weren't out on a field trip.
SO of course what happens a half hour later.
The officers are watching the weather reports from their laptop, they deem that tonight will bring a coming unsafe dip in temperature, andthe order goes out to pull everyone back to sleep in the cabin.
Out we set to break the accursed thing down AGAIN, only this time since he had gore tex pants and I did not, and with my polypros under my pants there was no room to blouse them into my boots, so I'm held back cause my cargos are snowy and wet and it's in the teens with wind already. Another SGT helped him thopugh, and so everyone outside had their stuff brought in and we sacked out there.
But NOW.....I can build that thing in my SLEEP.
And that was my misadventure that still gave me knowledge that could be useful.
In fact, everyone I know from either martial arts class, or from work, who was former service, once they heard of my process of joining the MASG, surprised me at how happy they were to provide me any help they could , from advice, and support, one even took me to his range to get trained up on AR style rifles (which I just plainly don't like but which are of the type issued to US forces and therefore the type I must become accustomed to), wouldn't accept money for his ammo, a third person, a former coworker, when he learned that the MASG is strictly an unpaid, all-volunteer force, and that, therefore, minus weapon, mags and ammo in cases where we'd be issued them, we each had to buy the rest of our battle-rattle ourselves, even happily offered me his leftover gear!
The Marine Corps has a saying, "Once a Marine, Always a Marine", that we've all heard, but the sentiment is the same irrespective of service branch, and experiencing it first hand from people who've been there and offer help, just because, almost makes you feel like part of a larger family. It seems Soldiers, for the most part, really do take care of their own.
Anyway-That was to be the single, and only, easy part of my February drill.
There is only one worse feeling in the world than realizing you didn't pack enough gear.
Realizing that you packed ALL your gear and it still ain't enough.
In this case my friend Aaron and I learned too late after a brief outdoor class that our boots were not up to the tasks we would need to perform( We each had basic Corcoran all leather garrison boots).and I found that despite my having bought, and made use of, polypro longjohns, polypro sock liners AND wool socks that despite all this my feet began to freeze fairly fast in the inch deep snow and air temperature in the 20s.
To their credit, since the State Guard is now finally (FINALLY!) beginning to get funding, they did give us about 50 pairs of insulated Gore Tex boots.
SO of course who are the only two schmucks who can't find a pair to fit them.
That's RII-iight!
So while the main body of troops got to gear up and do outside maneuvers and keep in radio contact, it thusforth became our job to be the Command Post, in this case, he the radio operator, I the log keeper. And we did the job as best we could and swallowed the fact that outside was Land Navigation, Map/compass, and infantry/ambush patrol formation training, once in daylight, once at night, and this was what we came to drill for and it SUCKED THAT WE WEREN'T OUT THERE.
But we sucked it up because you have to learn how to be a Command Post too, and we could be useful that way.
And neither of us wanted to be the schmuck who made our team miss out on their training time because either of us had to be hiked back to the cabin to play "This Little Piggy Froze Solid".
And most especially neither of us wanted to be the cold-weather casualty that cast the MA State Guard in a bad light with the MA National Guard, whom our main mission is to support and assist within Massachusetts, and whose 181st infantry division we will be drilling with from March until at least September to help prepare them for their fall depolyment to Iraq, and neither of us wanted anything to happen which could harm such a great troop support opportunity by casting the State Guard as idiots who didn't even know when to come out of the cold.
So we used the downtime to train in map and compass, refresh on the phonetic radio alphabet, and, of course, be the command post for the four teams.
But the most rewarding, yet frustrating, exercise that day was bivouac training.
2 regular National Guard soldiers were our instructors, and after an inside classroom talk on cold weather injury, we then all went outside and got shown how to make a poncho bivvy.
For those of you unfamiliar with this process, making a poncho shelter in cold weather goes as follows:
You brush away the snow so no moisture from the ground can come up and get you (cold and dry is miserable enough, cold and WET gets life threatening in only about a matter of instantly), then down goes your ground cloth if you have one, then your sleeping MAT( which I bought and had), THEN your bags one inside the other. Then you unsnap your poncho so it's one rectangle about 6 foot by 3 foot, tie the hood shut with its neck cord so as to make the hood opening waterproof, then using your parachute cord/bungee cords/combo thereof( i just had paracord), tie off each corner to a tree or equivalent, then go round the hood and loop it over a higher branch or equivalent, and tie it off raised like a mini tent so that the corners are about 3-5 inches off the ground with the middle higher. You then pick the side you want to crawl under it from when its time to sleep, then brush stuff back near the other 3 to insulate it and you're done.
So anyway, it came to pass that we were given a choice: We could choose to either sleep in the cabin, or set up a poncho shelter outside and brave the Cold, Cold Woods.
And I get to thinking, I'm pissed off that I had to miss part of the outdoor training and dammit I'm gonna do SOMETHING outside this drill!
Right! Out goes Andy with his ALICE pack, LBE harness and sleeping stiuff, and I pick a sweet spot, and it takes me time, half an hour or so, maybe more since it's like, the first time I've ever done this, ever, amidst much working, wasting of paracord, and muttered thoughts of "I must be ****in' retarded", I have my poncho hooch up. It was light and in the 20s when i wrapped this up.
So I go grab the SGT whos in charge and gonna be checking us at night to make sure we don't like, die and stuff, I show him where its at and if i do say so it is an AWESOME hooch for my first ever hooch (i picked a spot in amongst many trees to break up the wind chill, took advantage of a natural dip in the ground to put my mat down, had a running( not stagnant) stream 15 feet to my left to fill my canteens if i wanted
) He even compliments me on it.SO of course what happens after dark during chow.
The SGT, he comes back to me with a list/map of who's where, and now to be honest, now this is my own fault for not checking, i shoulda ****in' asked before i did it....but im 1-200 yds away from where the SGM wanted everyone in the same group so they could all be checked at once.
so i go find the Sergeant Major and I say "Sergeant Major...." and the foillowing exchange ensues:
"I was just told I'm not in the same group where you wanted"
"Yep"
"Since we were told to get our hooches up before dark and its now dark, does that mean i'm now inside?"
"Nope--get somebody to help you break it down and get it where it goes"
Now--you know me well enough at least to know im not an idiot, so i know better than to whine or complain in front of officers /senior NCOs. So while in the cabin finishing dinner, i simply nod acceptance like its no big deal.
But I won't lie to you, my friend Aaron graciously comes out to help me and as soon as we're out of earshot i won't kid you, my mouth became a sewer pipe.
*shrug* No matter. It's a soldier's lot in life to grumble, and his right, as long as he still gets the job done.
It is HERE, in the freezing pitch dark, with our blue-lens-covered crookneck flashlights, that I learn about the half hitch. Because once we got to my hooch, because my dumb *** knew no better at the time, all my paracord lines were knotted to the trees like an amateur cause, well,, i was. Did i mention the natural sunlight is totally gone from the sky now save for 2 or 3 lonely orange street lights nowhere near our position?
I understand it is good to practice light discipline and get used to moving in filtered/zero light. but you understand the blue lens was only BARELY enough to see what we were doing come time to untie paracord knots. So eventually we get that broke down and just roll most of it up.
Picture brave, heroic Andy.....................
.............................bumbling 150 yds westward, cussing his mouth off under his ragged breath, tripping over branches, snow hdden rocks and his own damn paracord, LBE dropping off his one arm, sleeping mat/bags half rolled in front of his eyes in a death grip attempt to keep it from unravelling any further, which fails.
Of course I can look back and laugh about it NOW..........
So we get there, and we find a spot, and we do the wholde brus/layer/spread/tie process again, and we're doin' OK, and we keep going and were almost done until suddenly we CANT FIND ANYTHING TO TIE THE LAST CORNER TO. I do not know how this escaped us but it did.
In a last desperate bid to save my hooch we go round looking for a rock to weigh the last corner down with. Only one problem--it's 9 PM, it's pitch dark and 17 degrees out and the rocks are frozen into the ground.
So we break the son-of-a-bitchin' thing down AGAIN.
We go to another spot, go through the whole aggravating process in the freezing pitch dark again, but this time it works. I get my change of clothes and full canteen and shove them down the foot of the bag so they warm up with me( out there, you change next AM, you change IN YOUR BAG, you dont get out) and we get back there with the Col. glad we weren't out on a field trip.
SO of course what happens a half hour later.
The officers are watching the weather reports from their laptop, they deem that tonight will bring a coming unsafe dip in temperature, andthe order goes out to pull everyone back to sleep in the cabin.
Out we set to break the accursed thing down AGAIN, only this time since he had gore tex pants and I did not, and with my polypros under my pants there was no room to blouse them into my boots, so I'm held back cause my cargos are snowy and wet and it's in the teens with wind already. Another SGT helped him thopugh, and so everyone outside had their stuff brought in and we sacked out there.
But NOW.....I can build that thing in my SLEEP.
And that was my misadventure that still gave me knowledge that could be useful.
