31 May – 3 June 2011

            I promise this post won’t be riddled with as many silly errors as the last.  Most importantly, there will be no use of the word “evidence” when I really mean “advice.”  These are the curses of recklessly posting unedited blog entries after a long day.  Also, this post in no way relates to that terrible Tim Allen movie, “Wild Hogs.”  He needs to be cryogenically frozen immediately to prevent him from doing any further damage to the art of film.

(Cue a facepalm picture.  Also, how is it that this movie has a 6.0/10.0 rating on IMDB?  I suppose if I were Tim Allen or any of the other actors, I could afford to just sit around refreshing the website and continuing to vote on the rating to artificially inflate it.)

The long weekend helped cure the mental ills caused by the debacle at the firing range.  On behalf of my class’s reputation, I’ll admit that I was in the minority.  The vast majority of people got qualified on the first day (within three to four rounds through), and we had 100% qualification by day two.

(An ode to the generally good shooting of my class.  Some of us are just the slower horses out of the gate.  Others of us are the horses that accidentily run the opposite way out of the gate and have to be carted around to the finish line.  Hooah.)

            Land navigation was the next flavor of the week.  Whether you’re experienced or not, this is one skill set that is absolutely perishable.  Although I remembered all the basics, it took me some serious warming up to remember the finer points again.  Like other skill sets, DCC cadre approached this one with the crawl, walk, run mindset. 

       During the beginning of the week, we marched down to the large un-air-conditioned classroom at the end of the road (this heat theme will be a common one for our cycle, and any other attending during the summer).  The classroom portions are comprised of all the basic land nav lessons normally taught over weeks or months, condensed into a few hours.  Map reading and all its intricacies, use of the lensatic compass, and other topics are ram-rodded through in quick fashion.  For those that have done this before, it’s a bit crazy to think that you could be taught this in a day, then thrown out on a large and difficult course alone 48 hours later, subject to a course standard.

(Downtown Columbus, GA on a lovely summer day.  On that note, if NASA ever wants to cheaply simulate a manned mission to the surface of the sun, they simply need to send a few astronauts down to Fort Benning for a week or so in June/July.)

      I was thoroughly impressed with my direct commissionee classmantes’ ability to quickly pick up what was being put out.  A lot of credit is due to the more experienced members of the class, who grabbed the torch from the cadre and helped along their struggling buddies.  You’ll break out the old reliable Tenino, Washington map, and walk through terrain feature identification, mapping grid squares, azimuths, and several other topics.  Just be prepared for a long day sitting on your rear.

      The next day, Wednesday, marked the crawl phase.  We took buses out to the Furman land nav course.  Furman isn’t the course you’ll use for the test, but it’s effective for it’s purposes.  This course looks like it was laid out over an old armor or artillery firing range, and it looks like they kept firing on it after the course was up and running.  The bleachers look like they took a direct hit in a fire mission.  In any event, today was a day of handholding.  The class was broken down into small groups of 15 or so, and taken out with cadre.  Each group had a map and a compass, and had to plot out a course of around 5 points.  Cadre didn’t assist with plotting or route planning, and instead took a back seat as the groups figured it out for themselves.  This was great strategy, as it was only 48 hours from the actual land nav test where you have no assistance.

     Furman is a pretty big course, and the trails aren’t great for use of attack points, which is arguably the preferred method of navigating (as opposed to dead reckoning, where you walk a straight line through all hell from point to point and hope you don’t get off course).  From time to time, cadre would step in and identify terrain features, which would be helpful later.  They’d linger behind the group until we found the point, and then they’d come in to do a miniature after-action review with everyone, where they’d offer tips and corrections. 

(Let's just plot a course straight through this mess for 1000 meters at precicely 22 degrees.  False.  Get someone to teach you attack points, or you'll end up being adopted by a family of boars, and be forced to live your life as a pig out in the wilderness of the Furman or India land nav course.)

By the end of the 5 points, our group had allowed all the inexperienced people to take the lead as a compass man, pace man, or manage the map.  Overall, we went from a stumbling, bumbling mass tripping through the woods to a bunch of fairly effective point ferrets. 

Thursday brought with it buddy land nav on the record course, India.  For the record, this thing is massive.  I though the course at Fort Lewis was the largest I’d been on, but I think India edges it out.  For those not wanting to be babied, you’ll be happy to know you’re qualifying on the same course used by the Officer Candidate School (OCS) and the Infantry Officer Basic Course (IOBC). 

    You’ll get out there bright and early at around 3am, which provides a couple hours of darkness to simulate night land navigation.  There is no separate qualification for night land nav.  Instead, you’ll split your course time between starting in darkness and wrapping up in the light of the early morning.  Buddy land nav meant pairing up and working together to plot your course, and set out to find your points.  Each group is given a set of 8 total points, just like the qualification course, along with a map and compass.

     Training events in the Army is always preceded by a safety brief.  Normally, these are dry talks about watching out for various hazards.  I really can’t remember any specific safety brief from the tons I’ve had in the past, but I’ll always remember the first one given at the India range.  We fell in on a large group of OCS students out there to re-test on the course, and received our briefing from one of their cadre.  I couldn’t see what he looked like in the darkness, but he sounded exactly like Ricky Ricardo, from “I Love Lucy.”  SFC Ricky Ricardo bellowed out a big hello to everyone, and the heavily accented brief went something like this:

SFC Ricky Ricardo: “Hello, hello hello…today is gowin’ to be ‘fery easy.  Shu (you) are gonna take your com-pass and shu are gonna motor around my course to each of your points.  Shu are gonna be careful out there.  Eets ‘fery dark, and shu will poke your eyeball out wif’ a stick.  Also, watch out for de’ momma peeg (pig).  There are many wild peegs out here, and the momma peeg is ‘fery, ‘fery mean.  Shu will come up on her little babies, and she will run you right up into a tree. Shu will be stuck in that tree for tree, four hours, and shour (your) com-pass will not work up there.  That’s all I have.”

            My attempt to spell out his accent was terrible, but it was a memorable performance.  In truth, that course is filled with wild boars that don’t hesitate to chase people around.  We had several class members get chased off their pathways by angry pigs.  I never saw any, but the evidence of them is all over.  The biggest issue is the paths that they cut through the brush.  You’ll be in the general area of your point, and you’ll see a pretty defined pathway that looks like other Soldiers have walked back and forth.  You’ll think that just following the path will bring you to the point, but listen to SFC Ricardo and be careful.

Friday was record land nav day.  Not much was different than Thursday, except that you don’t have any help.  You still leave to head out there at 0300, and will start by 0400.  Planning your course in the dark isn’t much fun, so make sure you have a reliable red light flashlight.  Don’t be the guy or girl that comes out there with a white light.  You’ll get crushed.

The standard for graduation is finding 5 out of 8 points.  You have to go to each point, write down the letter/number sequence at the top of the metal pole, and then use the unique hole puncher attached to punch a hole beside the point on your paper.  Each point has a different hole punch pattern. 

(I have no clue who this cat is, but that's what the points look like, with the 'clacker' dangling below.  You'll feel like Charlie did when he found his golden ticket each time you come across one of these.)

      The good news is that the course is self-correcting.  You’ll have a sheet with you that lays out the points, so the trick is just getting the right punch.  If you somehow go to the wrong point, the sheet will let you know the 10-digit grid coordinate, so that you can correct your course.  Take it from me that this is a huge advantage.  There were OCS re-testers facing recycling out on the course who were begging any JAG they could find to use the sheet.  Count yourself lucky.  Finding 6 of 8 points will net you an “exceeds course standard” on your graduation form.  This form will be filed away and never seen by anyone ever after graduation.

      I was pretty pleased with my score at 6 of 8, given that I had an average of 900 meters between points, which meant that it was a trek between each one.  My boots and uniform were completely soaked from walking through dew-covered brush near the first two points, so I spent the rest of the morning sloshing around India.  Once you get back, you’ll turn in your scores and be able to hang out until everyone is done.  I think our class only had three first time failures out of 116 total people, so your chances of a first time go are high.

Just don’t get run up a tree by a pig.