April Drill

Sorry it took so long to make this posting. I came home from drill to a dead computer and we weren't able to get it fixed until 2 days ago and I have to admit I was unexcited about writing about my failures. (If it seems odd to write everything I was hiding at drill on here it's because this blog is first and foremost a personal journal of what I do at drill and I have to put it honestly.)
So, this drill was IMT (Individual Movement Techniques). It was really well organized and a great time, but it ended up being a very difficult drill for me. I've decided drill is not near as much fun sick. I've had a really bad sinus infection for a few days now that totally screwed up my equilibrium and hearing which made marching really hard and my brain was a bit foggy so my posting might be a bit less detailed this month although it really was good training and I learned a lot.
This drill involved my first and my last ELP meeting. PFC Gluch told me last month to come to ELP because he liked what I did as squad leader. Unfortunately however, ELP ends for the summer so this month was the last meeting. It was good to see what goes on behind the scenes though. It seems our squad leaders do a lot more outside of drill than I realized. Sergeant Seader and Sergeant Lammers were in charge of the meeting and they're both really cool so it was good to get one meeting in with them.
After ELP we divided into squads and formed up to stretch and do PT. We had large (15 person) squads this drill so it was a little sloppier than I had hoped but it was fairly quick for a first formation. PT went better than I expected. I was worried about my push ups since I got thrombophlebitis due to making the mistake of changing tires less than 5 hours after giving blood. This means that I had a group of blood clots in my left arm that caused it to be very stiff and painful and slightly swollen. However, one of the great things about drill is that everything hurts less as a rule and I was still able to get out 42 in my minute which is respectable I guess. I managed 46 sit ups in a minute as well and I'm finally getting them fast enough that I'm starting to run out of steam before running out of time. My mile was terrible though. I gained 43 seconds off my best time which rather infuriated me. Although the sinus infection and phlegm cascading down my throat didn't help, they should not have hurt me that much.
However, more infuriating than my slow mile, was my general ineptitude and the fact that I proved very good at looking like an idiot this drill. While marching over to the track I realized my equilibrium was kinda off. I thought that I was marching straight until I felt PFC Garner pushing me sideways back into my spot. I proceeded to drift left slightly all of drill although I was able to make it better by intently staring at a reference point in front of me. Such a problem is not good while leading fourth squad but Garner did well enough about keeping me in line that I think only those directly behind me noticed.
Then once we reached the track we had to move off the road and ground our gear and since I was fourth squad I assumed the platoon would base off me and grounded my gear where there would be room for everyone. However, they based off of first squad which put me and the soldier who was next to my gear a few feat out of formation and I didn't notice until after Drill Sergeant Zupancic did.
After the PT test we moved over to the barracks where I was given the opportunity to be a bay leader which I haven't done before and was very excited to do. Here I believe I did well. We were able to get linens squared away very quickly and efficiently and we put together fire guard and had it posted far before we were checked on by our leadership. Luckily I also had a PFC Anderson in my bay who is a BCT grad and was able to help me with my hospital corners which was beneficial as well.
We then marched back to 521 where we drove HMMWV (humvee) simulators. Before we started I accidentally called one of the sergeants sir (which for me is something I normally call older men that I don't know well) which we aren't supposed to do but I don't think he noticed.
The simulators were really fun though. For whatever reason mine was faster than all of the other ones so I had to slow myself down the whole time but it was good. It showed how difficult it is to find people when you're being shot at too which was good to see. I also didn't realize how slow those things accelerated. I've heard they're dogs but the simulators made them seem even worse than I imagined. Overall, it was very good though.
After the simulators we went to drill and ceremony training. This was something that we drastically needed and something that I needed far more than I realized. We first worked with the four rest positions: parade rest, stand at ease, at ease, and rest. The difference in these positions involve where you place your hands and your freedom of movement from not moving at all to only having to have your base (right) foot in place. For this section Drill Sergeant Stace used me as the example and I believe I showed that I knew these well overall. However, I did not realize that my hands were slightly too far forward in parade rest so that was a very helpful thing for me. We then moved into facing movements which is the military's way of turning troops. Those I have no problem with at all while at a halt. However, I found that I actually had my timing very off while marching. I screwed that up multiple times before getting it right. It was very good for us to go over though and we had a much smoother drill because of it.
After D&C we went to a field to do Individual Movement Tactics (IMT) training. This involved the stuff you always see in movies- the crawling under wire type stuff in the form of low and high crawls. It's very simple and took very little time to do this portion. We also learned how to do what's called "scrolling a road." This is the proper way to cross a road when you run the risk of ending up under fire. The first man goes to whatever cover is available at the close side of the road to get a view of what's at the end of the road. After receiving a signal from the first man, a second man runs across the road and covers the direction down the road that the first man is not covering. After signals from the two men covering the road the rest of the team moves as quickly as possible across the road under the cover of the two men on the sides. The two men then rejoin the team and the team recounts to get accountability before continuing their mission.
After learning the basic techniques of movement we performed a basic exercise where we had to take a "machine gun nest" in a field where we had to move around a church, under some wire and across an irrigation stream. This was a fun but useful exercise and helped teach a great deal about teamwork and proper movement. It was kind of funny though; after we finished I asked Sgt Cole how he would have taken care of the nest if it was his fire team. He replied that he would stand about where we were (a few hundred yards away), note its position, and call in an artillery strike. I think that sounded like a good plan.
From IMT we moved into learning how to set up Claymore mines and throw grenades after a quick but very tasty sack dinner. The Claymores were very simple and we were informed they aren't really used anymore because of their crudeness. Very impressive destructive power though. They are every light and very simple put create a wall of BBs about 7 feet tall and 160 feet wide 100 feet. However, according to Sgt Goodman the simplicity of the Claymore often resulted in complacency and the Claymore caused a lot of friendly casualties.
The grenades were a good time to throw. They were also very simple and surprised me with the size of they're blast radius. The grenades we threw were practice dummies of M67 grenades and we threw them at orange dummy-people. We went over how to throw them, how to take cover, the importance of warning the other troops of the throw and taking cover and the basic characteristics of the grenade. An M67 can throw projectiles 230 meters and the average soldier can throw one 40 meters so taking cover is vastly important. At this station I failed again though. Our instructor asked us a question and I'm guessing I completely misheard him because when I answered the look he gave me told me I must have been way off base.
We returned to our barracks after this station and got everything there squared away. At this point I was rather disappointed with the way my leadership was going so I tried to think of what SPC McKenna had always done to be an effective bay leader since I had always liked him as bay leader. One thing that I could remember he did was he was always up and in ACUs already when he woke the rest of the bay up so I decided that I would do that so I was ready to help my guys instead of just worrying about myself. So I set one alarm for 0000 when I had fireguard and another for 0345 when I would wake up to shower and start getting ready.
During my fireguard shift I also decided I definitely need to get new running shoes. Our uniform for fireguard was our PT uniforms so I was in my running shoes while doing fireguard. One of the things that I do when I'm fireguard, which is probably unnecessary but feels right to me, is I cross the bay and recount my guys every 10 minutes. Since we're just on post and people very rarely leave the bay in the middle of the night this probably isn't needed but it helps to keep me awake and I like knowing that if asked I can give a very confident answer of who's in my bay. The only bad thing about this is that my running shoes squeak terribly. Even walking on my toes it sounded like I was walking on bubble wrap. Luckily we had three rather heavy snorers in our bay so I was decently covered up but I need to take care of that before next drill. Well, that's all for Saturday, I'll try to get a Sunday and a couple of other things up this afternoon or tomorrow.