Sorry its been a while since I have written you. I have been really busy. Last time I talked to you I told you I have been made a squad leader. That is part of the reason why I have had almost no time. A good chuck of any personal time we get is given to the squad because I have to make sure that my men have everything that they need and that both them and their battle buddies are squared away. It is not too bad. The Soldiers I have are pretty squared away. The only problem is that a few of them do not shut up when I want them to when they are in formation. I can deal with that though.
So on the 22nd we went to Eagle Tower. Its about 50 ft tall and you have to climb a wooden ladder up one side and repel off of the other side. It is actually pretty fun. They taught us how to make a swiss harness which is basically a harness made of rope. It is not the most comfortable thing to wear in the world either since it basically like putting all your weight across a rope on your lower back. It was kind of fun though repelling off of the wall.
Funny story though I am not sure if I mentioned this before but at the beginning of basic when we were issued our equipment there was this guy who asked to fill his camel back and the drill sgt got mad at him because he was suppose to get that done earlier so he smoked his ass. The private says “see this is why people die in basic because you do not let them get water.” At that point a huge pack of drill sgt get on his ass and literally smoke him until he passes out. When they wake him back up they smoke him some more until he starts crying. Anyway that same guy freaks out on the practice tower which is only 8 ft tall. He doesn’t tighten his harness very much and when you do that all the pressure is put on your balls. So when the guy panics and his feet slip he is basically hanging from his balls. Then he starts begging his spotter to let him down. Drill sgt starts laughing and doesn’t let him down as his legs kick literally 6 inches from the ground.
Another funny story. One of the guys at the top of Eagle Tower legs go of his brake hand (the hand you use to stop yourself from falling) so he starts falling. The drill sgt grabs him by the collar and keeps him from falling. The guy is kind of a bigger guy and his pants are not on tight so his pants start falling off as he kicks his legs in panic. At that point another drill sgt runs over to try and pull the fat kid up. Finally the guys ass crack is hanging out of his pants and drill sgt just yells “fuck it just drop the fat mother fucker” so they drop him. Luckily for him his belay guy got him.
So the 23rd we really didn’t do anything. We did some of our basic rifle marksmanship. We did shooting positions as well as worked on our sight pictures. We did not get to fire our weapons but we will tomorrow on the 25th.
Today the 24th we get to play around with AT-4 anti-tank weapon. It fires a high explosive anti-tank round that can go through 15 inches of armor. It is pretty cool. When the weapon impacts the side of the target it blasts a molten copper stream into the inside of the target and basically shreds the inside of the tank .