Its been a long time coming...

But here it finally is, the update.

The rest of my time at Ft. Jackson got progressively less and less stressful. I went to work at 0600 for PT (physical training- working out) and was usually done by early afternoon. Unfortunately, there isn't much to do around Ft Jackson during the day and because its a college town, there's little of interest to me at night, so there was a lot of time spent sleeping, watching tv, etc. All in all it was a pretty good experience. I saw some things to emulate in my leadership and some things to definitely avoid. Then I headed home for a few weeks of leave and wonderful relaxation.

Two weeks later it was back to work. Basic training at the academy is broken into two parts, or details. First detail consists of mostly garrison work and the administrative side of West Point- lots of issue points, placement testing, etc. Second detail, of which I was a part, consists of the field-type training of a soldier. Before the cadre of either detail can take over and be given new cadets to train the must first go through LTP which is a train-up to make sure they are qualified to teach everything.

I showed up to the Point for LTP thinking we would have little to do the first day, being Sunday. How wrong I was. We hit the ground running and ran non-stop for weeks straight. During LTP I averaged about 5 hours of sleep a night and worked long hard days. It was fun though. The field is a much better environment than garrison and we got to do things like rappelling, shooting, going through the gas chamber, more shooting, soldier first responder (SFR- first aid for combat) and did I mention shooting? We spent 5 days on the ranges with SSG Miller, a Special Forces Staff Sergeant. I learned more about rifles, how to shoot them and what to do when they won't shoot in those five days than all my previous experience combined.

Change of detail finally came. It was time for us to take over training the new cadets and none of us could wait. Exhausted, but excited, we moved our stuff from one barracks to the other while the new cadets were at sponsor homes eating ice cream and calling home. By the next morning the excitement had mostly worn off and we were all left more exhausted than before. The 5 hours of sleep a night turned into 3 hours and 45 minutes almost exact every night.

Luckily, the pace of training slowed. We began with shooting ranges- 5 days again but with us teaching this time. On day one, watching those who had never fired a weapon before made it nerve wracking to think ahead to the training after the shooting ranges, fire team live fire. This is an event where we give new cadets live ammo and have them running through the woods with their buddies, shooting at targets as they pop up. As the squad leader, it would be my job to be in the middle of the group controlling their movements. This meant two iterations of having two new cadets on either side of me with live ammo, running and shooting. Thankfully, by the end of the training before the event I had no hesitation handing every member of my squad (except one for medical reasons) a loaded magazine and having them run next to me. Needless to say there was a lot of progress made and it was quite fun to watch these novices turn into experts almost overnight.

Then for the next week we taught them to rappel, mountain climb, make rope bridges, handle a toxic environment (gas chamber), and various other skills vital to survival in combat. Then for a week we moved on to teaching them how to handle situations where things went wrong in combat (SFR). There are pictures of the gas chamber and learning how to do IV's below.

The last block of training was spent out at beautiful Camp Buckner for a culminating exercise. The Hyde Challenge truly challenged the new cadets on everything they had been taught during beast. For a little under 24 hours my squad conducted operations ranging from shooting (in highly stressful situations) to aiding those who had been ambushed to clearing IEDs. We walked somewhere around 6-8 miles, running much of it, and my squad handled the situations well. There was also a night phase during which we set up a patrol base and ran recon missions all night long. The pictures of the Hyde Challenge are amazing but I cannot show them here because they are owned by the West Point Public Affairs Office. There are some cool pictures of it and the rest of beast here. I will (hopefully) do a separate post about the Hyde Challenge soon.

After the Hyde Challenge the new cadets were given a much needed chance to recover for a couple of days. Sunday afternoon consisted of an awards ceremony (my company won 3 of the 4 awards, including best company) and a talent show. Then it was off to bed before an early (0430) wake-up and marching back to West Point.

March back is a large affair with old grads coming to walk with the new cadets, sharing their stories of the corps and congratulating these young men and women on completing beast. The planned route was 12.2 miles- we ended up going about 14. Moral of the story? Everyone needs to know the route, not just the person in front. Sometimes the person in front gets too far ahead and then nobody else knows where to go!

After march back I had 3 days of administrative work to get myself out-processed from the academy and here I sit at home, looking for a job. I figure between beast and LTP I walked/ran with a pack on my back for about 65 miles and averaged between 3 and 4 hours of sleep a night. Maybe this time without a job is a gift?