Week One at Fort Jackson

Well folks week one of training at FT Jackson is complete and to celebrate I have just coated my back and shoulders the best I could in Icy Hot. The first week was all about weapons and gear immersion. The first step is just getting used to the gear. In Iraq when you leave the fence line (the base) one must carry approximately 70 pounds of gear. For me it includes the following:

- Interceptor Body Armor complete with front, back, sides, shoulders and my favorite groin protector
- Kevlar Helmet
- M-16 Rifle and bullets
- M-9 Pistol and bullets
- First Aid Kit

So to get us used to it we wore it pretty much everywhere. All of which as you can imagine has done wonders for my back and shoulders.

Our days activities this week can be summed up in pretty much one word shooting. This week we shot, than we shot and to add a cherry on top of it we shot. We shot the M9 and the M16. We shot standing. We shot kneeling. We shot laying down in the prone position. On Saturday we got a break and had some classroom instruction in first aid and to kick off the class on a high not we watched videos of people getting shot.

At night there isn't much to do at night in hotel FT Jackson. We are living in open bay barracks, which is one rack next to the other down the line. Our barracks has two rooms and lucky for me I'm in the smaller of the two. I only have 5 roommates. When I arrived I picked the rack next to the Air Conditioner, which is usually a good call, however South Carolina is currently undergoing a cold streak and the Air Conditioner refuses to go off and has one setting, icebox. As I type this it is becoming more and more likely I will start a small fire in the garbage can for warmth. The showers are set up as open gang shower. Its amazing how similar this place is to being in prison. The warmest the water gets is luke warm unless someone flushes a toilet any where within I believe 15 miles of this place than the water slows down just a little bit for any where from half a second to a minute at which point in time it miraculously shoots out scalding hot water. Which helps keep us on our feet.

All of my roommates are deploying to Iraq for varies periods of service. I will be going for the shortest amount of time so its hard for me to bitch ... but don't worry I still do. One of my roommates Mike just found out that his wife is pregnant. He is scheduled to be deployed for approximately 7 months if you add the usual extension and well he should make it back in time for the birth, hopefully.

As you can imagine the recent events in Iraq (the resurgence of activity by Al-Sadr's militia) has brought up a lot of short conversations. To be blunt, I don't think its doing a lot to help ease our anxiety about the upcoming mission. Two of the people in the room still don't know where they are going in Iraq and could thus could possibly be going directly to the hot spots. Thankfully all Iraq conversations are cut short and generally end with one of us referring to another as a homosexual or they just claim other enjoys performing the act.

Military members are a lot like Eagles fans when in doubt just call someone gay.

Anyway thats the short recap, I am looking forward to enjoying the day off and my only plans are to not put any stress on my back.

As always more updates about this fun journey to follow.