*Dear Dragoon friends and family, it’s Thursday here and we are well on our way to rounding out an incredible week of training. The weather here at Fort Leonard Wood continues to baffle us, as we are mid-way into February and temperatures were nearly 70 degrees outside today. It has been unbelievably pleasant conditions for the three companies out in the field today.
And now for the update:
Alpha Company (Week 10): Alpha Rock ran missions most of the night last night before crawling into their sleeping bags on the ground for a bit of sleep. They woke up under their poncho lean-to shelters and got their kit together just before dawn so they could pull “stand-to.” They started off their day with a cold MRE breakfast before heading out for squad patrols and other assorted missions. They had “Fight Night” tonight with their pugil-stick gear, and they will have plenty more work to do tonight before they are allowed to turn in again. They’ve got plenty of work to do before this FTX is over, that much is for certain.*
Agree with your whole post. Excellent. Unsurprisingly, not much has changed from my era 30 years ago.
Expanding on the above …
A heck of a lot of staff work gets done in the wee hours to prepare for tomorrow. As much as we’re 24/7, many enemies are less night-centric than we are. So the overall situation tends to be stationary from, say, 10pm to 5am. So our staffs use that time to catch up. It’s when we can make sense of all the conflicting data that came in yesterday, formulate a coherent picture of the situation, report it up-chain & get fresh guidance coming back down. Then plan all our actions & supporting moves (beans, bullets, etc.), coordinate with adjacent units, etc. Then send all the results out into the field to be executed starting a couple hours before dawn. Then go face-down at our desks until about 10am when the results start rolling in. Except for the mortars & the phones & eating and … that’s the best rest opportunity in the 24 hour day.
One gets good at going zombie for 5 minutes between interruptions. It isn’t sleep, but it’s close enough to keep you mostly alive & mostly sane for weeks.
Thanks for the responses, they concord with what I expected and added details.
What factors contribute to the US advantage in night fighting? Better light amplification & IR tech, IFF beacons, what else?
I’m curious about people whose tasks involve important complex decisions based on incomplete information like radar operator, fighter pilot, tactical/operational level commander. On the one hand, they have a high quantity of work to do but the quality of that work is critical. Sleep deprivation will first degrade the higher cognitive functions which means they’re more likely to make important mistakes. Aside from stimulants, how does the military deal with that tradeoff?
Right, and that makes me think: sleep deprivation is used as a form of torture. What other practices does military training use which would be considered torture if they were used with, say, POWs?
Ivylass, if I’m sucking up too much oxygen in your thread, do tell me.
Not at all. I’m interested too! This entire basic training experience has been fascinating, especially the psychological components.
Ivygirl has written that the DSs are now less screamy and more motivational. Which someone upthread said would happen as the training went on.
I’m reminded of a line in Colleen McCullough’s Master of Rome series about Julius Caesar (or maybe she was talking about Gaius Marius.) His instructions to the centurions for training the new recruits was, “Drill them until they drop, then drill them until they don’t drop.”
the answer to this is
a)training “…remember your training, it will save your life…”
b)experience aka on the job training, “…either you’ll get used to it or you’ll have a psychotic break…”
Both quotes are some of the truest words to ever come from fiction regarding altered sleep cycles and training in service to the people.
Also this is why you will often see soldier fiercely defensive of their LTs, those guys are lucky to get 4 hours sleep while in the feild
It’s an auto pay, and I do know she’s getting a bonus after basic. Please excuse me for not sharing the details…it’s my daughter’s personal financial business (plus, it’s government, so there is a way to figure it out. )
Last night’s update from the battalion:
*Dear Dragoon friends and family, it’s Friday and we hope everyone is getting ready to enjoy a safe weekend back home. We here still have another full duty day left until the trainees get some time off on Sunday to attend a religious service if they choose, and to spend some time writing letters home. The weather here is stunning and we are enjoying sunny skies with temperatures in the 70’s. All in all it’s been some very pleasant conditions for the three companies we currently have out in the field.
And now for the update:
Alpha Company (Week 10): After four long days of round-the-clock operations, Alpha Rock is getting ready to redeploy from the field. It’s been quite arduous and the days have been long, but they’ve still got a couple more things left to do before their training is complete. Tonight they will finish up FTX III by going through the Night Infiltration Course and then after that they will have their Rite Of Passage ceremony (ROP). I will be out there with them tonight after sunset to witness the end of “The Crucible” and the beginning to the rest of their Army careers.*
Oh yeah the night infiltration:cool: (I incorrectly called it night assault, that’s something different) never heard of Rite Of Passage, wonder if that’s new since my time or specific to that base. The Mrs. and I were clearing out some totes and boxes from the garage this weekend, came across each of our BCT stuff. Spent half the day wandering lost on memory lane. (She’s been following your thread with me)
My daughter is irked because they call it NIC at Night. NIC stands for Night Infiltration Course. So it’s Night Infiltration Course at Night.
We’re flying out tomorrow to attend her graduation ceremony on Thursday. She leaves on Friday for Fort Sam Houston (unless something changes. It is the Army, after all.)
Heh, I think the wife is almost as excited as I presume you are. She’s really proud of her military service and wants everyone to succeed and be proud of theirs too.
Finally arrived at the hotel near post. We took a wrong turn from the rental car place and what should have been a two hour drive was 3.5 hours. Plus Frontier Airlines snapped one of my wheels off my luggage. :mad:
Wed is Family Day and Thursday is graduation. Ivylad and I may just spend tomorrow in the hotel room, with maybe a quick drive up to the post to make sure we know where we’re going.
I just got back from a trip to Sam Houston. It’s an exceptionally nice place. The roads are kind of a mess, but there are lots of very cool historical buildings out there. I saw plenty of IET soldiers walking around, but I didn’t have any business with them so I can’t comment on what to expect there. I don’t care much for big cities, but Fort Sam is so nice and spread out that once I made it in the gate my stress level plummeted.
But anyway, congratulations! Now the real fun starts.
All set with tomorrow. The Warrior’s Banquet is at noon, and after that Ivygirl is free for Family day until about 8:30p. Then graduation is Thursday at 9a, then again she’s free until 8:30p. She said she’s shipping out Fri.
The night infiltration course was the closest I came to dying in the Army including Iraq. Someone handed a very inexperienced Candidate (he came from the Air Force) in my OCS class live rounds for his M60 instead of blanks. If not for the keen eye of someone in my class I would have been taking 7.62 rounds while I was waiting my turn.
Oh man, I remember that day now ivylass, family day, went off post with my wife and parents, went for Chinese, first time the meal wasn’t rushed, restricted, or out of a can or plastic pouch in two months. Heavenly! PICS! WE (the mrs. and me) want PICS of the ceremony! Pretty Please?
YIKES Loach! oh wait, OCS? Nah that was a test to see who was paying attention:D
really,
it was
honestly
I promise it was:cool:
I pinky swear it was a test of attention to detail
She wants pizza. She’s currently sitting in our hotel room, changed into “civvies” (they’re Army themed clothes she bought at the PX) and is waiting for her phone to charge. She has to be back by 9pm tonight, which means I’ll leave here at 8p to get her back in plenty of time (it’s only about ten minutes from here.)
No really, she won’t know what the job is really like until she gets out of training. Basic ans AIT are not the Army. Once she gets settled in at her permanent station she will better be able to gauge how she feels about. Take anything she says now with a grain of salt. She has been brainwashed. Not in a bad way, in a way that is needed to get everyone thinking in a military manner and working together. The gung ho attitude will fade. She may decide she likes it and stay on for a career. She may not. There is no way to tell by how she is feeling now.
)