Shooting

Well it is the start of the last week here in Idaho! It has been a long two weeks. The first week was a pretty slow start for us, But now we are going full speed ahead with training. We have been working 20 hour days out in the field just to come back to base and sleep for 4-5 hours and then go work in the clinic for 10-12 hours, they also mix in some training for the medics too! I'm exhausted.

The other day we did weapons Qualifications on our M-16's. So in my little medical section we have three medics and a Doctor right now. The Doc is a SF (Special Forces) Guy and if you don't know who the special forces are you should look them up! They are pretty BAD A$$ Dudes with cocky attitudes! So before qualifications the Doc was talking himself up about how good he is at shooting and he only needs 15 minutes to go qualify, but boy was he in for a treat against private DeMass! To qualify on your M-16's you shoot 40 rounds: 20 rounds in the Prone Supported Position ( Laying on your stomach and holding your rifle on a sandbag), 10 rounds in the Prone Unsupported Position (Laying on your stomach holding your rifle without support from a sandbag), and 10 rounds in a Kneeling Position (You can figure that one out on your own). The targets you shoot at range from 50-300 yards away and are in the shape of human silhouettes that pop up in sequence for about 3 seconds a piece. Sometimes 2 targets will pop up at the same time so you have to be fast on the trigger. To qualify with your weapon you have to hit a minimum of 23 targets out of 40. So Mister Special Forces Doc shot 30-40. Not too bad, since the the average is 23-28. You should have seen the look on his face when I told him I got a 36-40! All I can say is PRICELESS!!! But because his tough guy image was in jeopardy, that look didn't last long. He immediately ordered me to sweep and mop the clinic. So I did....But with a big grin on my face, and laughing under my breath!

We also did NBC (Nuclear, Biological, & Chemical) shooting, which is where you shoot those same targets but with your chemical suite and gas mask on! I think only people in the military know how hard that can be. The mask sticks out about an inch where your eye holes are! So it is very difficult if not impossible to look through your sights. But what did I get you may ask??? 30 out of 30 baby!!!

One more qualification we did was night fire! Where you shoot at the same silhouette targets but in the dark! They put glow sticks on the heads of the targets. So all you can see is a floating glow stick. This one is very difficult because you cannot see your sights! You are basically just pointing your weapon towards the target and shooting in that general area. That is why god had someone invent night vision goggles or scopes! It definitely gives us an advantage against out enemies! In the night shoot I shot a 21 out of 40. Not to bad considering they were all shots in the dark :)

We're still not sure when exactly we're leaving Idaho but once I get home I'll have a few days off and then I'll be back to work and blogging. I'm not sure if I'll get another post up before then or not but stay tuned I promise I'll be posting more.