Week 10: Patrols...of Death

Ok the title is a bit melodramatic but at times that what it felt like. So Monday morning is just like any other with PT and the like. Then you get prepared to get out to the field. They bus you out there, drop you off, and once you get all your equipment loaded you're off. A note on that. You will have a TON of equipment. They give you a week's worth of MRE's (12) you're own ammo for the week (around 300 rounds per M4) and then you have to distribute the machine gun ammo. I think each person in the platoon carried 200-400 rounds and the weapons squad carried around a thousand at all time. Plus all the other stuff (AT-4's, javelins, breach kit, tripods--those bad boys weigh 25 lbs themselves--extra barrels, etc) in your rucksacks. There is no way your rucksack itself will weigh less than 80 lbs, its just not possible. The only good thing is that as you go through the week it will get a little lighter each day as you use your ammo and eat your food. If you're in weapons squad youll be even heavier. Total, including my FLC and weapon, I had over 100 lbs on my body. Somehow you just get used to it. No secrets there. Just make sure your ruck is connected properly and fits you well or you will be in a world of hurt. If you don't know what you're doing ask someone! Don't wait, its not worth it. So when you are doing patrols they dont really care on what or how you brief, as long as it works. You are graded 100% on execution. Obviously the more you brief the easier it is. Ok my only advice here is work hard and dont screw your battle buddy. We literally did not sleep at all until Friday night when we almost got an hour before we returned to the TTB and started loading up everything and cleaning etc. But I thought I'd give you a few high lights (or low lights) of the week. We started really bad. We had to do a 5 km movement but our PL did bad terrain analysis and took us through a swamp. It SUCKED. Both literally and figuratively. The epitome was the PL himself who literally fell into the mud up to his armpits. If you dont believe me I have pictures, Ill send them to you. To say he was stuck is a serious understatement. He couldnt move, or even access his radio and the whole patrol almost moved by him completely before the RTO noticed he was gone. We were in a heavily wooded area and couldnt see much, plus we were in traveling over watch. Suffice to say that we didnt even get close to making it to the OBJ and failed miserably. PL got it the worst, but everyone was up to their knees at least. Other fun things included moving 12 casualties 1 km off the OBJ to a LZ. I happened to be the medic on that lane and I literally fireman carried people 2.5 km myself. It felt awesome. The last lane we had was the real killer. We had to move one casualty 10 miles on a skedco. That flat out sucked. It was the hardest thing Ive ever done in my life hands down. You still have all your gear and dragging that guy through the woods and sands just sucks. We went up a hill that I swear was vertical. But I admit I felt like a bad ass when we finished, though i was so tired I could barely pull the trigger when OPFOR hit us at the LZ. This was also a time for people to step up. We had one kid who was carrying the 240B carry all his own stuff, that, his tripod, and 2000 rounds of ammo. His kit weighted over 150 lbs easy. We didnt even realize it until afterwards or we would never have allowed it. But he was a real team player and made it easier for all of us. Dont get me wrong though, it wasnt all suck and we did kick some ass eventually. We had tons of smoke and using that is always fun. Plus once you get all your CAS and CCA down with your IDF you can really dominate. Have fun with it, cause you certainty wont be doing anything else.