OSUT All Over Again

**Sorry for the delay on updates! Training became very high speed all of a sudden and my procrastination bit me in the butt ^_^ We have a few days off so I will try and get back on track this coming week. Media added to the previous post too.**

When we first arrived at B Troop we received an initial briefing from the drill sergeant on duty stating that we couldn’t eat or use chewing tobacco in our barracks, couldn’t carry pocket knives, weren’t to leave Disneyland(the small basic training area bordered by Disney street) and had to sign out on a roster every time we left to go to one of the three facilities available in the area: a shoppette with a ridiculously expensive(15 cents per minute) internet café, a small gym, and a running track. He said that the troop would try to treat us like permanent party and this was supposedly just an initial directive until the first sergeant was be able to come down and give us a briefing. That gave us hope for the coming week but we knew that, since the forty plus soldiers from Camp Mcgrady were getting in on Sunday, we wouldn’t get the briefing until Monday and our weekend plans of visiting Louisville were shot. We therefore basically sat around and did nothing for two and a half days in our eight man rooms. Gotta love the Army!

Things didn’t get any better after the briefing. As a matter of fact, they got worse. We were marched to chow every meal even if we wanted to order pizza instead, we had a Red Line for accountability where we had to recite the Soldier’s Creed every night at 2100, and towards the end of the week a drill even told us we couldn’t nap when we had free time nor lay on our racks to rest. We were basically held to basic training standards and protocols aside from having more free time, being allowed to eat whatever we wanted, and being allowed to use tobacco products.

Two new drills out of the troop’s twelve were rotated in to oversee us everyday so rules changed all the time. One drill even made us do CQ(Charge of Quarters) and fireguard duty and after complaining we still ended up rotating on CQ every night. There was one drill that stood out. He called us “faggots” and teased people about being overweight, said soldier’s combat patches were meaningless since they didn’t have discipline, and made us grab our balls at times when we didn’t sound off loud enough. Some of the soldiers got so fed up that they reported him to IG(Inspector General) and someone’s wife even called their congressman. These things didn’t bother me much since I knew he was just teasing most of the time but, mixing his serious disciplinary statements with the playful ones on top of the fact that most of us didn’t want to be there in the first place, a bunch of the soldiers were offended and took it personally.

Being on a TRADOC(Training Doctrine) post, arguably the worst one, was really irritating to us IRR guys; especially since we were heading to the exact opposite type of duty station: a FOB in a combat zone. TRADOC posts are always demoralizing because the training environment requires everything to be done by the book and is almost a crime if not. I can understand how they need to follow regulations and instill discipline to train soldiers but it can be taken too far very easily since there are no other missions at hand. Compared with a line unit where, as long as work gets done and the missions are accomplished, rules can be bent, TRADOC protocol is often very trivial. For example, a lieutenant colonel had nothing to do for 20 minutes one morning but stand on a walkway outside our barracks waiting for soldiers to pass by without saluting him so he could chew them out. A lot of the drill sergeants, who are almost all staff sergeants, even expected a handful of IRR sergeants, only one rank lower, to stand at parade rest when speaking with them even though that would never happen in any normal unit. With too many ridiculous things to describe, it’s not surprising why Fort Knox has one of the highest suicide rates out of all the posts in the Army.

On Monday the new group started their training and we joined them since we couldn’t be left idle in a TRADOC environment. They did a pretest on all the subjects we covered plus POMing the 240B 7.62mm machine gun, the M203 rifle mounted 40mm grenade launcher, the SINCGARS/ASIP(new smaller version) radio system, and dismounted hand signals.

Tuesday, instead of riding our trusty air conditioned cattle truck from the previous week, we marched out to the motor pool in a foot of snow to finish the pretest with all the BFV skills tests, topographical maps and the M4 Carbine. That night we convinced the training cadre that we didn’t need to go out and do the BFV and HMMWV day and night driving again so on Wednesday after our daily 0530 PT and breakfast we were able to hang out at the troop supply room. We did the same on Thursday but ended up organizing a shed full of OSUT dropouts’ gear in 10 degree weather. I would have preferred the 240B and M203 EST training that the other soldiers went through.

I finally got my orders that day sending me to my mobilization site but I was getting sent to Camp Shelby, MS; a mob site for Iraq. I had to delay my initial report date because of a dental issue so I knew my orders would change since the unit I was originally assigned to would be almost done with their tour by the time I was ready to deploy. Nonetheless I was almost certain that I would be headed to Afghanistan since my job wouldn’t be of much use in Iraq where it is quite stable. I was initially quite irritated since, if I am to go to war, I would like to see some combat and would prefer to be in the mountains of Afghanistan where fighting is more similar to conventional war in that civilians are not mixed in with the enemy as much. After further reflection I felt more at ease with this change since living standards will be exponentially better at the built up FOBs in Iraq and since it might be God preventing me from getting hurt or dying in Afghanistan. One sergeant I met at Fort Knox put it best stating, “Easy money!” since I get all the same benefits as I would in Afghanistan but will have to go through much less hardship.

One wake up and I was on my way to Louisville at 0500 on to Camp Shelby, MS. I couldn’t wait to get out of Knox but Shelby wasn’t all that much better either!

More to come soon ;D