Monday, August 28, 2006

Finally, some good news from BOLC II

I made it: I qualified with 26/40, which is the standard on paper targets.  I got pretty lucky since there was one shot that could have gone either way but they counted it in my favor.  Now all I have to do is Land Nav and other than that, as long as I show up and try, I will graduate and leave this place.

I actually was starting to think I wouldn't have time to qualify today.  Only 1st and 2nd platoon were on the range today, so there were five of us that had to rezero and qualify.  First, the cadre forgot to bring the zero targets, and then they had the whole rest of the two platoons go through all their training before they pulled us onto the range.  I had thought that we'd be a priority or that we'd be shooting at the same time as them, but instead we shot at the end of the day, and we were in charge of the ammo point all day.  By 3:30, everyone else was finally done, but then there were some inclement weather issues so we didn't even get on the range until 4, leaving us exactly an hour to zero and qualify before the range would shut down.  Fortunately, I got it on my first try since the cadre had to shut down the range once we were done with that first round.  One person still isn't qualified, but the cadre were originally intending to give us two or three changes so hopefully they'll manage to work him in with 3rd and 4th platoon tomorrow.

Tomorrow should be a nice day, too.  Our first formation after PT isn't until 8:20 which means we have almost an hour and a half rather than a hour to get ready and have breakfast.  We have more classroom training in the morning, and in the afternoon we will be shooting a variety of US Weapons, such as a SAW (machine gun) and other pieces of equipment that I know nothing about.  Plus there are no targets, so nothing for me to not hit.  Unfortunately, I just found I have CQ duty tonight/tomorrow morning from 0400-0500, so that sucks just a little bit.  They finally came up with a plan by which it rotates alphabetically, but I thought I was late enough in the alphabet to miss it tonight, and not have it until the weekend.  At least it's only an hour shift.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

No targets for me not to hit????? Sure hope you never get ambushed. I think for Christmas I will have to buy you a rifle, a pistol, and a membership to a gun club so you can shoot weekly. I need to fill confident you can take out any Al-Qaeda as need be.
Dad