Thursday, January 22 Crawling in the Sand & Soldier testing

Hey all, I survived and was not left behind. Tough day. We started around 0700 with a bus trip to the day infiltration course. there were two lanes that we had to negotiate twice this morning. the first was learning to work with a chaplain assistant and move with him from cover to cover points to assault a location. It was fun, not to far from my police training. But we were wearing our ballistics vests (about 40 pounds) and kevlar helmets (battle rattle).

Now the second course was a boy's childhood fantasy. G.I. Joe stuff. We walked through a wooded area to a sand pit. We had to high crawl (hips on ground using arms and legs to pull yourself) through about twenty yards then low crawl (head in the sand) for about twenty yards then turn over and crawl through barbed wire area then crawl over a wooden fence. It was tough and a mess. But preparatory for tonights night infiltration course. A good leg and arm work out.

We had warrior task training which includes first aid, radio communications, map reading, and gas mask testing. I passed, OHAH! We ate another MRE- vegetarian cheese tortilliani-- it was better than the chicken from the day before.

We moved to another area for the night infiltration. We ate a hot supper brought out to us then lined up to march to the course. It was live fire over the top of us with several pits that exploded literally shaking the ground. It was pretty cool. We had about two hundred basic trainee's lined up in front of us then the 79 chaplains. We layed down in the sand and had about one hundred fifty yards to crawl on our stomach keeping head down. My battle buddy and I came across a female soldier trainee just soping in the sand. She was scared to death. We coached her through the course and all made it safely. I didn't know we were going to do ministry at the night infiltration course, but it made a difference in the young ladies life, I pray.

Well two quizes tomorrow. Got to study. God Bless you all, one week left, we worse is over for me now.

Steve