Man Down!

Sunday March 3, 2013- It's been so long since I've had a chance to write! This last week has been crazy! We started FTX #2 on Monday, which they refer to as Victory Hammer (or Vic Hammer for short.) It was insane. I'll go into greater detail later or when I have more time, but here's a summary. We built hasties the first day, which was cold as hell out but thankfully dry, and got ready for a long night pulling security. PVT Maestro and I were battle buddies again for the duration of our time there. After chopping through tree roots that were as big as my forearm with my E-Tool (the Army's collapsible shovel), PVT Maestro and I camouflaged our hasty real well. We had tree branches and small logs laid out over the back of our hasty to cover our ruck sacks  and then plenty of pine needles, grass and leaves covering the branches and hiding our entrenched position. Me and PVT Maestro got in conversation and stories during this time. We spoke of life, love, meeting our wives for the first time and how we proposed to our respective ladies. We talked about or past and present concerns. Maestro mentioned to me that not only had he never been camping before, but he had also never slept in a sleeping bag before. So this truly was an alien experience for him. Overall though, I'd say he handled himself pretty well. We had guard duty at 2100 and then another hour at 0100. When we woke up in the morning, it was raining and water had seeped in underneath our tent. We were dry in our sleeping bags, but I had taken my ACU jacket and placed it under the head of my sleeping bag for some extra padding during the night and it was completely soaked. No!!! Thankfully, I had two extra changes of clothing in  a waterproof bag in my ruck sack to change into. We got out of our tent after a dry shave 9OUCH! I cut the crap out of myself) and realized just how hard it was raining. Pelting us at a steady rate, this rain was constant and every five minutes would turn to freezing rain and back again. We then walked through rain and fog to the area where our platoon was lining up to go to eat breakfast chow. It was at that point that we heard that over a dozen people had fallen out as cold weather casualties. PVT Jukebox, who had been fighting a relapse of the pneumonia he came down with in the first couple weeks, somehow was released from  the hospital and taken straight out to the field. It was no surprise to me that he showed up late in the evening of the first night out there and by the next morning was already back in the hospital. Seems like he just wasn't fully recuperated yet, though I suspect they took him out there so he could get credit for participating in Vic Hammer, which is a graduation requirement.

So ,we're in line for chow and hear "Man Down!" to our left and then not even a whole two minutes later another "Man Down!!" to our right. We sat down to eat breakfast and I knew something was wrong when some people were so cold and wet they didn't hardly touch their food. While we ate, about four or five more people passed out and then the ambulances began to arrive on the scene to take people to the hospital. One female was being carried to an ambulance when the two females that were carrying her fell and dropped her in a huge puddle about six inches deep filled with freezing cold water. The sudden shock must have been too much for her body and she started to have a seizure. At nearly the same time, another private had been placed into the back of the company van and stopped breathing TWICE! The paramedics were on top of everything and did their best to treat them, of course. The private in the van started breathing again and the one with the seizure was okay eventually. I was standing at the port-a-john waiting in line when a private from my platoon passed out and fell straight backwards, hitting his head on the ground. Thankfully, he was wearing a helmet (we were all in full battle rattle) and it cushioned the majority of the impact. I walked up to PVT Intel who was lookin' really bad at this time and he said he felt frozen he was so cold. He's a Texas boy, like me, so I felt for him and told him we should take a walk because we had to keep moving and warm his body up. Shortly after our walk, DS Action Man came over and had us get in a shoulder-to-shoulder formation to try and conserve body heat. He then had us start marching in place and called out a bunch of cadences we had never heard before. The morale was actually improving for our platoon and we were warming up, but just then the drill sergeants that were taking over for those who were with us at night, came on duty. They were DS Poker Face and DS Amazon, who walked up and saw a bunch of privates complaining about how cold it was. DS Amazon threw a kind of concussion grenade (a dummy one, of course) about 20 meters down the road from our position and yelled "Incoming!" to which no one really responded. I guess we were just too cold and I'd like to think that she threw it to get us moving and warmed up ,but the response was abysmal. Because of our lack of reaction, she had us hike up a hill about 50 meters from our original position and then low crawl through the mud back. In our full gear, it was entirely, unmistakably and painfully real that we were in the Army now and that currently, Basic Training owned us.  As I crawled, I tried to keep in mind that I have no choice but to succeed here, for my family's sake. I was not about to throw in the towel on this whole thing because of some freezing mud. So, we're lined up after the low crawl, soaked and even colder. If we had been told to pack our wet weather bottoms it might have helped a bunch of people to not fall out. But no,  many of us didn't bring them because they weren't on the packing list that was given to us. At this point, a very high ranking Sergeant Major came over and assessed the situation, telling us we needed to pack it up and head back to Company HQ. We all felt like ice cubes but it was almost over. On the short march back to where the bus had dropped us off initially I realized I could not find one VERY important piece of equipment. Apparently, at some point after my gloves had gotten soaked and my hands went completely numb, they stuck tighter to my hands and fingers. So when they told us to take them off, because wet hands only make your hands colder, my wedding ring slipped off!! I was SO upset I started to tear up. How could this happen? I asked a Drill Sergeant and he said that Fort Jackson had claimed another one and that hopefully, it didn't cost too much. I'm still mad about it more than a week later, but I do realize I was practically hypothermic so I'm trying not to beat myself up. It meant alot to me though, with a great deal of sentimental attachment.

It's been cold and wet here, but they're saying the weather's gonna warm up soon. Yesterday was a clear day and warm in the afternoon. We're all just hoping it stays dry, and hopefully warm for Victory Forge on Monday. It's our last field exercise and lasts 4 1/2 days so we'll see. They don't treat us too badly here, but we're just cold all the flippin' time. It gets windy often here and that's the most annoying part. I may not get to write again for a few days (till Sunday) but I'll try. Everyone's excited for graduation in 2 weeks!