Light At The End Of The Tunnel...

Dear Friends,

This entry will probably be a little longer than normal for two reasons. For one, there is much to talk about, and secondly I will be in the field over this next weekend and won't be able to send out a message. Anyway, this last week went really well. It was a relatively easy week in A/C buildings with plenty to make the time fly by. I am now Army Combatives Level I certified after getting punched in the face a few times in our final test (to prove I can close the distance with a fighter and take him to the ground). I also took the final PT test and the Ranger 5-mile test which I ran in 29:37. After doing well in these it looks as though I'm guaranteed a slot in the Nov. 5 Ranger School slot. At the end of the week we took our Infantry Tactics exam which I scored well in. Overall, I'm done with most of the odds and ends of the requirements for graduation from IOBC. Now I only need to stay healthy and complete this last field week.

We have both Monday and Tuesday off, but on Wednesday we head out to the field one last time. We'll be doing a platoon live fire first in which we will maneuver and fire as a platoon. These always take awhile because the Army is so crazy about safety. We should be done with that by Friday which is when we'll start our final platoon tactical missions. We start with an Air Assault mission (helicopter insertion) into our training area. The next few days will be filled with wood line and urban operations. The coolest thing we'll be doing is probably setting up a Combat Outpost in the urban training city. We'll set it up and man it for 24 hrs straight, and it apparently is very close to what units are actually doing in Baghdad right now. The final mission will be a company level (4 platoons) assault onto a city which begins with a 12-mile ruck march from the start point to the objective. It should be a smoker at the end of 4 straight days of operations. I have no idea exactly how hard this final exercise will be for me and my platoon, but I would appreciate your prayers for safety, strength, and success in our training. It is incredibly important to me that I finish strong...too many people give up in the final phases of training when they see the light at the end of the tunnel.

For now I will continue to enjoy my 4-day weekend...also, 3 more folks from my ROTC Battalion just arrived down here at Ft. Benning. It's always nice to see familiar faces. Bye!