This is me all dressed up for duty in the Narmy (That's what we've taken to calling all of this duty - Navy/Army = Narmy). The big wad on my helmet is my sand goggles and their cover. The armor is only the basic front and back vest and I don't have on the side plates, groin protector, neck collar, and arm wraps in this picture. I'll try to get a picture of that configuration and show you just how much protection we wear. All told, the armor is about 40 pounds - ish.
The next picture is the entree from a MRE (Meal, Ready-to-eat), in this particular meal, chicken and dumplings. We often have these for lunch so we don't lose training time going back and forth to the DFAC (Dining Facility - what we call a "Galley" in the Navy). Most of the MREs aren't too bad (including chicken and dumplings) but some aren't quite five star rated (such as "Imitation Pork Ribs, Boneless" - I haven't had the pleasure of that one yet but the folks that have said they think it must be the stuff that doesn't make the cut for dog food and so the Army gets it).
This is our reflexive fire training. Here, instead of taking precise aim like you would to shoot a stationary target when you have lots of time, here we are shooting with minimal aim at close range, pop-up targets. We started back about 25 meters and advanced up to about 7 meters where you end up just shooting from the hip. The targets pop-up left, right, and center so you had to train over and back to engage. I really liked this training since it was different than any other shooting than I'd done before and seemed more realistic than qualification shooting.
Speaking of qualification shooting, here's the M-16 range. Like I said in an earlier post, the targets are displaced left and right and sometimes pop up alone, sometimes in pairs. Here, the target at 150 meters is easy to see (and realtively easy to hit) and if you look way in the distance, you can see the 300 meter target. (I labeled it for you here; the Army didn't have those big yellow arrows for us!) It is every bit as small in real life as it appears here. I even managed to hit it a couple of times but the Army Sniper School still hasn't called me up. Hmmmmmm.
Well, those are the highlights so far. Week one is complete and I've enjoyed a nice, hot Sunday off from training. Week two begins afresh tomorrow at 0515.
Cheers, Pearl
