Saturday, February 17, 2007

Gunners Exam, Foot March, Atkins Award

We had the Gunners Exam today. My section sergeant passed with flying colors, got himself rated an Expert Gunner. A couple of the guys in the section passed with First Class Gunner scores. I squeaked in with a Second Class Gunner's rating because I was more interested in trying to get one guy better on some of the tasks than I was interested in getting a good score. But the Lord really blessed me today.

You know, maybe, that I had been wearing my body armor for the last week or so, everywhere we went. It was killing my ankles, but my shoulders were really getting used to the weight. Yesterday (Friday) I decided to drop the IBA for a couple days and wear my LBV instead.

Today, after the gunners exam, we picked up all the pieces of our mortars (remember, they're 81mm mortars, check the link from yesterday), and we carried them 3.5 miles back to our barracks.

The only thing that was tough was that my ankles were killing me. Once they get healed back up, I'll be in fine shape. But carrying the bipod over my shoulder was no problem at all, because I was used to the weight from the IBA! How cool is that?

The Sergeant who marched us in from the training field told us that there is an award given to the members of each class of 11-C school: The Atkins Award. It goes to the soldier who, by the end of the class, has spread his pollen to the most overweight woman. The guys from SC aren't going to be able to win THAT one, since we all know we're not supposed to leave post!

Tomorrow is another day of class, but like I said yesterday, hopefully we start learning technical and conceptual stuff shortly. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also planning my morning so that I don't have to walk fast. That involves doubling the amount of time I allot myself for travel everywhere, which is kind of a pain, but I really want my ankles to get better.

Tomorrow's another day of training! God Blesses us greatly!

No comments: