gekko
06-18-2004, 02:50 AM
Well I'd like to begin saying the Army is a whole different breed. We get to the "field" and they have a PX, barber, laundry mat, BBQ rib place, Thai Garden, hot dog stand, coffee shop, internet center, phone center, hot chow, and showers. They even had ice water, in 110+ degrees! Ice water!!! In fact, their water gets replaced hourly. We're lucky to have water, and we never have ice. For chow, MREs. We pray to have some sort of shelter to create shade, and maybe a outhouse or two so we don't have to dig holes. They never carried their rifles with them for some reason. The guards were talking on cell phones all post, and they talked to senior ranks like they are back on the block. A completely different world for us.
Anyway, we started the training. There were 3 companies there from our battalion, and the training was 6 days long. We would do missions for 2, then post as a quick reaction force for 2, and then do firm base security for 2 as the other companies went out. Well instead of the Bn CO sending out the "inferior" companies, we did 2-3 missions a day, for 6 days. The other companies only left the firm base twice. These aren't short missions either, we're talking leave at 0500, come back at 1930. Lucky to pull off 1 meal a day, and we didn't get much sleep because once you go to sleep, people need to stay up to post security. We got ****ed.
We were the first Marine unit to ever play the BLUFOR (good guys, basically). We were rated above excellent, best they've ever seen. Surprised our company didn't have mutiny because we did so many missions so quickly and had nothing to eat but MREs.
This whole thing was stupid. Worst training we've ever done. We weren't even allowed to touch anyone, to search them or anything. This coming only a couple weeks after we trained ourselves for these types of missions full contact. We play rough, the Army doesn't. They hyped a lot of stuff, real casualty evacuations, massive CS gas attacks, real Iraqi/US citizens who won't speak any English. All stupid. Gas attacks never came, Hajis spoke Kurdish, and the casualties were just a waste of time, because the stupid situations we were put in we weren't allowed to do what we wanted. Basically all we did was break the vehicles that we need to send to Iraq in 2 weeks.
Whatever, it's over, we're home. But oh wait, a bunch of people had their rooms broken into. Oh yes, we have a 24 hour post who gets out and roams the then empty barracks. Well some guys manages to break into a bunch of rooms, and beat at our lockers with ****ing crowbars without anyone noticing! Oh yes, the locker with my computer, Xbox, GC, and everything else amounting to almost $10,000 worth of ****, I come back to find the handle had been hacked at and attempted to be pried off, and the lock had been changed. Found out it happened to a bunch of people, and people from our unit in another building. Thank god they didn't take anything, but makes you lose any sense that your **** is secure, being behind 2 locks that no one should have the keys to!
**** this.
Anyway, we started the training. There were 3 companies there from our battalion, and the training was 6 days long. We would do missions for 2, then post as a quick reaction force for 2, and then do firm base security for 2 as the other companies went out. Well instead of the Bn CO sending out the "inferior" companies, we did 2-3 missions a day, for 6 days. The other companies only left the firm base twice. These aren't short missions either, we're talking leave at 0500, come back at 1930. Lucky to pull off 1 meal a day, and we didn't get much sleep because once you go to sleep, people need to stay up to post security. We got ****ed.
We were the first Marine unit to ever play the BLUFOR (good guys, basically). We were rated above excellent, best they've ever seen. Surprised our company didn't have mutiny because we did so many missions so quickly and had nothing to eat but MREs.
This whole thing was stupid. Worst training we've ever done. We weren't even allowed to touch anyone, to search them or anything. This coming only a couple weeks after we trained ourselves for these types of missions full contact. We play rough, the Army doesn't. They hyped a lot of stuff, real casualty evacuations, massive CS gas attacks, real Iraqi/US citizens who won't speak any English. All stupid. Gas attacks never came, Hajis spoke Kurdish, and the casualties were just a waste of time, because the stupid situations we were put in we weren't allowed to do what we wanted. Basically all we did was break the vehicles that we need to send to Iraq in 2 weeks.
Whatever, it's over, we're home. But oh wait, a bunch of people had their rooms broken into. Oh yes, we have a 24 hour post who gets out and roams the then empty barracks. Well some guys manages to break into a bunch of rooms, and beat at our lockers with ****ing crowbars without anyone noticing! Oh yes, the locker with my computer, Xbox, GC, and everything else amounting to almost $10,000 worth of ****, I come back to find the handle had been hacked at and attempted to be pried off, and the lock had been changed. Found out it happened to a bunch of people, and people from our unit in another building. Thank god they didn't take anything, but makes you lose any sense that your **** is secure, being behind 2 locks that no one should have the keys to!
**** this.