Weapons Qual

Friday morning was a bright, early start for me. I drove down to Fitzsimons, ready to rock the firing range! The morning was the usual drawing of weapons and gear, then the bus ride down. We had a little bit of a hold once we were set up in the billets, since the ranges were behind schedule to go hot. The first sergeant offered to take several people to the Military Clothing Store, and I decided to go with him and buy more boot laces. (Al has developed a fascination with mine.) When we got back, we were late for the move to the range, so SPC Faith and I rode down in the back of a HMMWV with CPT Robinson. Once at the zero range, I tried to quickly verify my M16's zero was still good, then headed back.

Friday evening, SFC Zimmerman cooked up some commo training for SPC Dupio and myself, and we refreshed ourselves on SINCGARS radios and learned how to operate a field telephone switchboard. I really needed the radio refresher, and the switchboard training was completely new. We are going to need this stuff for AT in June, so I was glad to get some section training.

Saturday morning we went strait to the qualification range. On my turn, I shot 32 out of 40, my personal best! I even moved up from a Marksman to a Sharpshooter and earned a new qualification badge for my Class A uniform. After that, we were moved over to a MOUT range. We had some Iraq vets teach us the basics of urban ops and clearing buildings. I thought it was valuable and interesting training, but I hope I never need to use it. Several of us lower enlisted, including SPC Pritchett and SPC Faith, hiked back to Tent City with CPT Scahill. With the blessing of MAJ Acree, we even stormed the Tactical Operations Center where the big wigs were hanging out.

Sunday was mostly uneventful. I had a quick bus test from MSG Scott. He's one of our unit's only bus drivers and he's retiring at the end of May, and we hope to have more than one driver for AT.

It really struck me this drill that SPC Vaughn really isn't still here in Colorado. He deployed to Iraq a few weeks ago. I just hope and pray that he gets back safely in one piece.