Yesterday morning, I awoke at a ridiculously early hour in order to go out to the Utah Test and Training Range (UTTR) for a two-day exercise. The UTTR is about a two hour drive from here, just west of the Great Salt Lake. Even though the landscape is half desert / half plains and very dry, it's strangely beautiful.
We saw lots of wildlife, including jackrabbits, badgers, and antelope. I wonder how all those animals can survive in such a desolate place.
The exercise was pretty exhausting. We began out-processing the base at 5:30 yesterday morning. We convoyed out to the UTTR and immediately began training. There was lots of lecturing followed by rolling around on the ground and hiding behind barricades and other such scenarios. The fun part was that we had MILES gear (don't ask me what MILES stands for), which is basically like laser tag. Our day didn't end until 2 AM this morning.
And today began at 5:30 AM with another "attack" on our camp. After that, we had a de-briefing by the main trainer guy, Army Sergeant First Class Felty (aka Talky McLongwinded). Then, we cleaned our weapons, convoyed back, and I got home a little after noon, whereupon I immediately showered for 45 minutes. I'm amazed my eyes are even open right now. Luckily, I'm getting tomorrow off as a comp day.
As I've mentioned, I'm not really a big fan of this war-time training, but I guess it doesn't hurt. It's a little stressful trying to remember sequences of what to do when someone is yelling at you, and I bet it's even harder with bullets flying past your head. I hope I never have to find out.
2 comments:
I hope you never have to find out either.
Coming in September: The Terminator, starring Currt-Dawwg... (that's what that picture reminded me of.)
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