Hurry Up and Wait

I reported to Fort Sill, OK on the 1st of July and have been going non-stop since. I have completed my two weeks here in Oklahoma and it has been one for the ages! Just kidding. Actually it was pretty boring, just a whole lot of waiting in lines to get only a small amount of things done. Basically the first week consisted of medical, dental, eye exam (passed by with flying colors), finance, 7 hours of briefs in one day on STDs, sexual harassment, equal opportunity, red cross, and then standing in more lines. We did get the 4th off so myself and a few other LTs here went out into the city of Lawton, found a church parking lot and watched about a dozen fireworks shows panoramic style. My guess is there are no laws, or very few of them, that keep rather good fireworks from civilians so these shows we saw were not put on by the city but by locals out of their backyard. Pretty impressive. The real fun doesn?t start until next week but this upcoming week gives us a small taste of what to expect.

We had our Army Physical Fitness Test (APFT) in which I got a 289 out of a possible 300, way above the platoon average of 272, Combatives (grappling, sparring, self-defense ect), a whole lot of classes on odd things and more lines. The classes were of a wide variety. The first was on Close Combat Optics or CCOs. CCOs are an internal reflexive laser system that mounts on top of a weapon but what is unique about this system is that the laser is only visible to the shooter. As I stated, it is an internal laser. It may not be very clear to everyone what that means so to break it down, imagine a weatherman standing in front of a blue/green screen. That weatherman is the laser's dot. You can put anything behind the weatherman on the screen and the density and image of the weatherman does not change. With that in mind, the laser inside of the CCOs does not get dimmer/weaker as you point at something farther and farther away but remains constant. This is because the laser never leaves the optical sight, what you see through the scope can change (close or near target views) but like the weatherman never moves from his post, the dot never moves. Does that make sense to everyone? It's a really cool gaget that is designed to turn the army into a point and shoot because wherever that dot is, the bullet will hit.

We also received instructions on Night Vision Goggles or NVGs. These are what we put on our helmets that can flip up or down when you need them and give you the ability to see at night by filtering what light is in the area and intensifying it in a green shaded image. There are two different types, one that covers both eyes and another that covers just one. In my opinion, I don't really like NVGs because they actually ruin your true God given night vision. The intense green light takes away from you ability to distinguish different shades of dark when you are walking around in the woods. I'm not a fan of loosing my vision again.

Next was a class on how to properly sight the bore of your rifle and our CCOs so that the laser of the CCOs were perfectly in-line with the muzzle of the weapon. Basically that laser inside the CCOs is no good to you if it is not lined up with were the bullet comes out causing you to miss your target even though you aimed the laser at it. Other than that, we have just been going over the basics for shooting our weapons, breathing, trigger squeeze, aiming, and relaxing, all of which can change the direction of your shot by just enough to cause a miss.

Due to a $1000 projector gone missing our entire barracks housing approximately 200 LTs was searched this week from top to bottom. Every nook and cranny, every wall locker was taken apart, every car was searched. It took half of the day and it never turned up. Combatives is over now and my body is thankful. Being sore has found a new meaning in my vocabulary. This weekend is all about getting things done, errands and whatnot. I got paid yesterday, very exciting!