We were there primarily to qualify with our M16A2 rifles, though a few (un)lucky soldiers were issued M203s (M16A2 rifles with a 40mm single shot grenade launcher strapped underneath the barrel) and a few even unluckier ones were issued Squad Automatic Weapons (SAWs) aka M249s, which are heavy, bulky, and never seem to get comfortable.
I was happy to be going, but perhaps a bit bothered by a pinched nerve in my back, which only got worse as the weekend went on, and has only fully healed now, a week later. Once we got there though, we all began to sing a different song...
Here: ____ is where I'd like to put a picture of the latrines at Ft. McCoy. But since I couldn't find said pictures of the ones at Ft. McCoy, I found a picture of some more modern latrines from Camp Dodge.
All I can say is that our grandfathers, and with the younger generation of soldiers, great grandfathers, had no shame - NONE! Its sad when you look forward to the port-o-latrines at the ranges each day... although, even there, you need to look out, as people may give you a refresher course in Rollover Drills for the HMMWV called HEAT training. HEAT training looks like this, and we did it in Cali in June as part of our Mob phase 1 training. It looks like this:
When soldiers don't have access to a HEAT training facility, but wish to ensure that their battle buddies maintain their expertise, they improvise, like these gun bunnies did somewhere in the sandbox:
All fun aside though, we spent much of the day waiting, with very little hurry up. We were up for morning formation by 0345 in the male barracks Saturday morning, and out for formation by 0415, and in line for chow by 0440. Initially we were supposed to be done for chow and on our way to the ranges by 0515, but I don't think we finished eating until 0600. Originally our training was scheduled for our BN, but three battalions ended up being there that weekend.
SPC. Kuntze and myself buddied up at the zero range and both happily zeroed in six rounds. Thinking that we were on our way to the qualifying range, we strutted back towards the chow tables only to find some of the soldiers in our unit without proper gear, i.e. no ACH (Army Combat Helmet) or LBE (load bearing equipment). Lending them our own with the hope that we'd have them back quickly, we began what would be our several hour wait sitting on a concrete slab trying to stay out of the drizzling rain.
When we finally had our equipment returned we hopped on a bus to the qualifying range, and both qualified as sharpshooters (31-36 targets hit out of a possible 40). For once the Gods must have been smiling on me, as Top (our company First Sergeant) had just passed on the word that soldiers who had qualified could return to the barracks. So at the qualifying range I literally jumped off the bus, grabbed ammo, qualified, returned the empty magazines, received my score, and hopped on another bus to go back to the barracks. After a brief nap and a trip to the PX for some rank pins, and unit insignia for my soon to be phased out Class As (as well as a trip to the MODERN latrines) it was time for dinner chow and then a trip to the Night Fire range.
This first video shows the opening shots of the exercise - the first string firing at the 50m targets (which flash white for a moment so you know where to shoot). I believe we were firing a combat load of 1:5 M856 tracers to M885 ball ammunition, and that is what the streaks of red are: tracers.
In the second video SPC. Felda and I were battle buddies for the final string of the night fire...this was taken around midnight or a little later (the exercises began around 1900 / 7:00PM). As we were the last string we got to take part in the ancient Army practice of 'creating less paperwork and hassle for the range cadre' which in this case meant shooting up all the excess ammunition so everyone's numbers added up. SPC. Felda instructed me in the equally ancient art of tilting the weapon so the brass is ejected into a box, thus creating less mess - and work - for the both of us.
All in all it was a good time at McCoy, and we get to go back in just about a month and a half and do everything all over again...this time I hope to shoot expert! (37-40 targets hit out of 40 targets)
