Sunday February, 24, 2013- Whoo! It's been a busy and crazy week! On Wednesday, the day after I fell out of hydro-form from the effects of cold weather, the morning started off great. PVT B-Boy got to call his girlfriend to wish her a happy one year anniversary and was on cloud nine. I was his battle buddy in a quiet hallway while he got a full ten minutes of talk time as I stood at the other end of the hallway to give him some sense of privacy. Thursday we went back to the range and did more ARM training. It's been so cold and wet here that everyone's been miserable. Apparently, it's usually warmed up by now, but this has been an exceptionally long-lasting and fiercely cold winter for South Carolina. Well, at least that's what I've heard.
On Thursday and Friday, we had night fire training and those were long days, lasting from around 0400 to around midnight. We got to use Night Vision goggles when it got dark and shot live rounds while moving towards targets. It was fun, exciting, nerve-wracking and frankly, flippin' awesome! It's feeling like real Army training now. Not that it didn't seem real before, but I guess what I mean to say is that when I was a kid and imagined what my two uncles, who both served in the Army for years, did for a living... this is what I envisioned.
Saturday we were supposed to go to the confidence building course, but as we were doing PT in the early morning, it began to rain. HARD. Now, we had only been at it for about 10 minutes and I though maybe, just maybe, we would stop right then and go back inside. Oh how wrong I was. We ran laps through puddles, we did pull ups of various kinds on slippery bars, and we did sit ups with rain drops the size of grapes smacking us in the face. I saw people looking like they were about to cry, they were so miserable. I actually didn't mind any of it until my socks and shoes got soaked. Lol. I must say, we are the most hardcore company here because, even though they talk tough, there was no one else out there pushing through the rain except for us.
After PT, they gave us extra time to get changed, so anyone even halfway wise took a hot shower and got into dry ACUs. Then we found out that the Confidence Course was cancelled due to the rainy Hand-of-God weather. It was a blessing in disguise though as the pain in my knees was getting to old-man levels. I couldn't take a knee without an audible groan and was starting to have muscle spasms in my upper legs. So I went to the clinic and the doc said the bands of muscle on the side of my knees were extremely tight and he said that, if I had waited much longer to be seen, I would have definitely torn some ligaments.
With some anti-inflammatory meds and some prescribed Ben-Gay, I should be a new man in a few days. I'm so glad that's not a concern like it had been the last week or two. The problem isn't being able to be seen. It's finding a time to go that won't cause you to miss out on training that is essential for graduation requirements. I could have gone to the doc the day after my knees started hurting, but like many others, I waited a while to make sure it wasn't something that passed after a couple nights' sleep. BCT is a very complex game of managing time. You're rushing all the time to get things done, but when you're done, it'd better be perfect or else. And it always seems like you have to have eyes in the back, sides and any other part of your head to not suffer. It's exhausting sometimes! Lol.
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