Infantry!

Well, perhaps I'm not quite ready to lateral transfer to the Infantry just yet, but I am now qualified with my M9 pistol and my M-16A2 rifle.

This week has been focused on shooting and qualifications and now we're all steely-eyed killers, ahem, well, we know which way the bullets are supposed to go. Actually, the qualification process was quite a lot of fun for me but it was quite challenging for some folks who haven't shot a weapon since boot camp (their original Navy boot camp which places a little less emphasis on basic infantry skills than Army boot camp for obvious reasons). The pistol qualification was relatively straight-forward with timed shots at a paper target at 25 meters. The rifle qualification was much more challenging with pop-up targets from 50-300 meters. The targets were only up for a few seconds and were offset from centerline so you had to train left and right a little to get on target. 300 meters is quite a distance when shooting with open sights I must say! But, like I said, I qualified on both, which is a good thing.

Today, we did quick reaction shooting where we practiced short-range, pop-up engagements. It was a lot of fun and was more tactical than just shooting on a "normal" range. It was also the first time we wore all of our body armor to shoot. This past week we were just wearing the vest and armor plates which I thought were restrictive and heavy just by themselves. Today we added side plates, a groin flap, a neck collar, and upper arm pads. I think we should all be issued a squire just to get dressed in this stuff; I'm not sure if old-fashioned plate mail was more awkward to wear and move around with! I'm sure I'll get a little more used to it but it is a lot different than a flight suit and normal survival vest I'm used to wearing. (Or, just plain working uniform for the office that I've worn for the past few years for that matter!) Regardless, this week has been challenging but very fun and rewarding and it's nice to know that we Sailors, few of which are young and spry, can at least get these basic combat skills under our belts in such a short time.

The week has gone by much faster than I anticipated and with PT tomorrow and a couple of lectures, I'm half way through. I have to apologize for still not having pictures like I promised. Since I'm using a computer in the computer lab, I still haven't figured out how to get a picture transferred over but I think I'm close and perhaps I can get some pictures posted this weekend.

Cheers, Pearl