16-20 May 2011

In restarting my blog, it wasn’t my intention to revisit DCC.  I have nothing against the course, but I was content to leave it as a blank, uncovered 6-week period.  One of the primary unexplained reasons I didn’t post extensively about the training was that I simply didn’t take much of any notes during the course. 

     I kept a semi-journal of days with bullet pointed lists of tasks and events during OBC.  That made it really easy to go back and write about events, even long after they had passed.  For a variety of reasons, I let this practice slip away during DCC.  After falling way behind in posts, I faced the issue of not being able to remember what we had done each day.  It wasn’t that I had memory loss, but I had set a trend of talking about events in a fair amount of detail, and it was hard to break that rhythm, so I just gave up on it.

In any event, much like the prompt to restart the blog, I’ll bow to the wishes of at least one of my 7 readers and go back in time.  It’ll be useless to attempt an accounting of each day, so I’m going to step back and talk about chunks of time instead.

(I thought about popping in a picture of a cave in or collapse, but then I realized the Dallas Cowboys provided me with the perfect metaphor.  Much like their debacle this past Sunday against the Detroit Lions, I too have collapsed and bent to the will of strangers.)

      I remember the second week of DCC seeming like more of a placeholder than anything.  We went from technically accomplishing a small goal-CLS certification, to a familiarization week.  Up to this point in training, the M9 pistol was the only real weapon most of the class had ever handled.  Week 2 changed this.  The class was introduced to the M4 carbine in unspectacular fashion.  By unspectacular, I mean you go to the basement armory, draw the unclean weapon, march in the heat down to an un-air conditioned classroom and receive blocks of instruction on a number of topics.  More on that in a moment.

(Oh wow, how cool! False. You'll agree with me after the first 60 slide powerpoint about the weapon. Samuel Colt is rolling all around in his grave.)

      The beginning of the week featured the biggest JAG-dropper to date: the obstacle course.  To Fort Benning’s credit, it was the newest Army obstacle course I’d stepped foot on since joining in 2003.  The obstacles are always the same.  You have everything from the Tough Nut to the Weaver and the Dirty Name.  Although the obstacles were familiar, the high occurrence of injuries was not. 

The “Dirty Name” was a particularly adept assassin of classmates.  It’s hard to describe the obstacle, so I’ll let the pictures do the work for me:

(Looks like he slipped on a banana peel.  I don't think banana peels cause crippling back injuries, though.)

(Yes, this logically should have been the first picture.  No, I do not care that it's second.)

(Pre-ambulance visit.  Kidding...I'm 65% sure this person was ok after the picture was taken.)

     We were broken down into platoons, whose squads ran the course independently (before coming together for a big competition).  Before I knew it, almost a third of the obstacles were shut down and at least one ambulance had come blazing onto the scene.  No one was seriously hurt or permanently broken, but a solid number of people came away from it dinged up.

     Overall, it was actually quite a bit of fun.  Of course, I’m mostly saying that because I didn’t break myself on any of the large pieces of wood composing the obstacles.  The rest of the week was a series of hands on classes with the M4 and close combat optic (CCO).  For those unversed in the lingo, the CCO is the relatively newer optic that mounts where the handle usually goes on top of the weapon.  It projects a laser inside the optic (which doesn’t extend to the target like a typical laser).  Instead, you put the dot over the target, pull the trigger, and score a hit (ideally).

     I really wish there was something more enthralling to say about the classes.  But, when you’ve gone through one BRM powerpoint presentation, you’ve gone through them all.  Expect to battle the Z monster, and expect things to be taught to the lowest possible experience level.  The end of the week saw us zero the CCOs, which is a relatively time-intensive process for a bunch of inexperienced non-infantrymen.  There are no bullets involved.  Instead, your ammunition is a box, a paper target, and a pencil.  The goal is simply to get yourself firing on the paper target come actual zero day.  I realize I’ve done a terrible job explaining borelighting, but go google it if you’re truly curious.  I’m sure there’s some 45 minute youtube video shot by an incredibly bored and dry individual laying out the whole thing.

     The week ended with a pretty fun day at the engagement skills trainer (EST).  This is an indoor simulator, which lets you practice BRM fundamentals on mock M4’s that simulate recoil.  It’s basically a big video game.  Unfortunately, only 8 people could fire at a time, so you can do the math.  Cadre would load about 30 or so people into the EST trailer at once, and they’d rotate through the simulator firing in the prone supported and unsupported.  Everyone else is hidden in an empty trailer next door.  Prepare yourself for a bunch of sitting around, as each lane takes about 10 minutes to fire through.  If you forget a book or other reading material, have a friend knock you unconscious, because there’s nothing much else to do.

(The graphics on these things haven't changed since 1996.  Prepare to be transported back to a Sega CD-type world.  Except the Sega CD was a much more reliable machine than the EST 2000.)

Next up: week three and the endless ordeal of trying to qualify with an un-zeroed weapon.