End of Week 7

This is my team (1/2 of all the Navy in my class)

It is now Sunday and week 7 is complete. Only 5 days left of training.....

Week 7 was interesting. On Tuesday, we drew our weapons from the armory, then had a morning class on how to plan Urban Ops (Operations). After lunch, we went out to the range and did SRM (Short Range Marksmanship). This is where we became familiar with shooting the M4 from many different positions. We walked towards the target while shooting, turned our backs to the target then turned back around to shoot, and also turned to shoot the targets from both our right and left sides. We also did transition shooting. This is a double tap with the M4 (2 shots), then letting it fall to our sides (on our sling while always maintaining positive control of the weapon) then a double tap with the M9. This was repeated over and over. Then, we shot another range where we got up from the prone position, ran to a building, shot a double tap out of each window standing with each shoulder, then ran from the building, shot kneeling from each side of a barricade, then ran to our final shooting position where we shot standing while resting the non-firing arm on the hood of a blazer. It was fun.

On Wednesday, we went to another range where we learned and practiced Battle Drill 6. This is how to enter and clear a building. We only learned it. We are not proficient at it. It can take a team at least a month of doing nothing but Battle Drill 6 everyday for a month to become proficient. We broke off into Team 1 and Team 2 and took turns entering buildings. The final building had 2 "insurgents" firing rounds at us. We used wax bullets and fired back. Needless to say, we need alot more practice....

On Thursday, we had a mounted combat patrol class in the morning, then used computer simulations to practice in the afternoon. Again, another item our team needs to practice. We have some basic concepts, but need to practice, practice, practice. 

Friday and Saturday were more lectures. We had an Air Force LT COL and a civilian doctor from CSTC-A Command Surgeon (Combined Security Transition Command Afghanistan) come talk to us about what is going on in Afghanistan now in Medical. I will be working for CSTC-A once I deploy. They gave us background information on what the overall plan is to ramp up the Afghanistan Medical System for ANA, ANP and civilians (Afghan National Army, and Afghan National Police). They gave us some reference cds with extra info for us to go through.

Today was another half day of fishing out on Milford Lake. It was myself, Dennis, Andrew and Rob. I don't have the pictures on my computer yet but will post them later on this week. We had our best day of fishing and landed about 15 fish including 2 big blue catfish. We kept the catfish and brought them back to the barracks. We cleaned and filleted them, then dipped them in batter and fried them on the grill. We lit some charcoal, heated some oil up in an aluminum roasting pan and fried the fish. Best catfish I have ever ate....then again, it was the first time I have been out fishing and someone caught some catfish. One more additional note...we caught the cats on lures we were using for bass. That is unheard of. You never catch catfish on lures....

I will post again later on this week....GRADUATION ON FRIDAY!!!!!