Personal

Moving Blog to GeeksWithBlogs

Rob Reynolds — Thu, 28 Jun 2007 01:55:00 GMT

Due to future maintenance concerns, I will be moving to GeeksWithBlogs.net. My new address will be http://geekswithblogs.net/robz. It is unknown at this time if I will be migrating my posts over to the GWB server or leaving them here for future reference. I do have some older posts that belong here that I have not posted yet. If you see any show up for 6 months ago, that is just me finally adding those posts. Thanks for your continued reading and sorry that I have been silent up to this point. Life has not slowed down for me recently, and it is apparent that it probably will not. I will just need to schedule time to reflect at least weekly and get these thoughts out of my head. :D

Last BOLC II Exercise: 10 Mile Ruck March

Rob Reynolds — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:40:00 GMT

If you don't think walking 10 miles is bad, you should try doing it with

IBA (Individual Body Armor) +30lbs
Weapon (in my case M249 aka SAW) +25 lbs
Ruck Sack with numerous items +35 lbs
Molle Gear and ACH +8lbs

Now walk ten miles in the dark through fields with uneven terrain and lots and lots of dew on the ground. And it is 40 degrees out. Okay, so five miles through fields and the last five on or next to roads. Your feet get soaked, and then they get cold. When you are done, drop your ruck and go on a mission to the top of a mountainside that has you walking well over 2000 meters. I have pictures to document the mountain and the distance.

So we started at midnight with this march and it carried through until 0800. We actually started the ruck march around 0100. That is about seven hours of walking. I fell a couple three times because the ground was uneven and there were lots of drop offs from where people drove vehicles over wet earth. We had one guy fall down to his midsection when he stepped into a hole. It was kind of funny, but I was worried about not getting hurt because I have a PT test to pass on Tuesday. I think I rolled my ankle twice while I was walking, but not bad enough that it would cause a sprain. We kept stopping for breaks, which sucked at first, but it was very nice the further we went because that weight on my body was getting heavier.

So I am not one to normally complain, but this was horrible. I had to keep placing my mind other places to get past the cold. I kept thinking that I was at home in front of a nice fireplace with the fire going and getting cozy with my wife. When we finally arrived where we were going to be, I put on my Polypropylene because I was starting to get cold.

At this point we had been up for 10 hours and now we were going to go do a mission which like I said was to take a mountainside. Our mountainside was two mountainsides away. We got to the first one, and I thought that one was ours, but it wasn't. The one we were going to was way off in the distance. So we moved tactically back down the hill to the bottom and used the ravine to cross over to a strategic position. There was a section of the ravine that didn't have much tree cover and thus we needed to low crawl. Now most of the people out there had M4s, which are 7lbs, and easy to low crawl with. If you have ever tried to low crawl with the SAW (again around 25lbs with ammo), then you know what I was going through. Plus, I forgot to put on knee pads before we left, and I was paying for it during this part. It is two days later and my knees still hurt from this. Then we bounded up to the strategic position which was still nearly 1000 meters away from the target. We could see the OpFor at the top of the mountain standing there looking out for people to be coming up. At this point we are two squads and my squad decides that they want to bound up the side of this mountain, which I may add requires us to go back down the side of the hill we are on and into the ravine, then all of the way up the other side, which moving out in the open took people nearly 40 minutes to come down from the top (and we were going to do it tactically). I switched spots with someone from the other squad because I was already loving life and didn't want to take a chance at injuring myself with something that was not a graduation requirement (the ruck march was a requirement, the exercise was not). So I stayed here to provide support for them as they went up the hill. They bounded up and down the side of two hills trying to stay out of sight. I think they were out there for an hour and a half before they finally got up to the top where they took out 6 people before getting annihilated by the rest of the OpFor. This to me was a suicide mission in the first place because the OpFor had the high ground and was in a much better position than we were.

When the exercise was complete we ate out there and checked sensitive items, then loaded up and headed back. At this time I was hoping that we were done and go into our rooms.

When we unloaded we knew differently. We were to stay outdoors and turn in our IBA and then clean weapons for a couple of hours before we would be allowed back into the barracks. When we turned in weapons, we had been up for approximately 18 hours. Then we finally were released at 1830. At this point we changed and went to dinner at Hong Kong Buffet, which is an awesome place to eat! I highly suggest it. They have sushi on their buffet and it is great! It was pretty much all I ate while I was there.

I decided against heading to Tulsa on this night because I had been up for 22 hours by the time I was ready to leave.

Total Training Time: 20 hours
Total Time awake: 23 hours

The FOB

Rob Reynolds — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:38:00 GMT

Be sure to check out the pictures on Flickr.

For the last two weeks we have been in the FOB (Forward Operations Base). During this time we were not allowed to have any electronics on us except for a camera. A whole bunch of connexes are set up in a square to create a perimeter and they have 8 guard towers set up on them to survey the surrounding area. Inside the FOB we have several buildings that all have AC/heat. I have to say that although there is a lack of running water, this is the best field experience I have ever had.

Last week we came out here and stayed two nights to prepare for this week and staying out for four days and three nights. This week however has been encompassed with increased security and missions.

Our first day out here we did 3 missions, with two of them after dark. The first mission was to clear Liberty City with an entire platoon instead of just by squad. This was pretty awesome! Only one time did I lose my squad and that was when we had smoke going off and we ran through it. I caught right up with them after I choked through that. One of the night missions was a recon, but it turned into a break contact mission after we received fire. The third mission started around 2AM and carried us through 6AM. This mission was to locate and sieze a weapons cache. This turned into a dismounted ambush. It was kind of fun, but we were also crawling around in wet grass... So we got a total of two hours rest our first day out at the FOB.

The second day we got more rest. Our mission was to secure the FOB. Three hours on, three hours off gives you about 2 hours of sleep at a time. The second night we started OpFor (Opposing Forces) to counter other platoons missions.

One thing we have done in our room (two squads) is to name ourself pirates. We went as far as to get a pirate flag and eye patches. We have a room commander and each of us have pirate positions. We are possibly the only platoon that is having a good time at the FOB. I think most of us like this better than being at the barracks.

Last night some members went to do OpFor and they took the pirate flag with them. They held Liberty City while another platoon attempted to clear it. They pretty much annhilated the other platoon. When they were done, they turned on a white light and waved the flag atop one of the three story buildings!

Did I mention that Miss America came out here to visit us? She was young and pretty, but she mostly looked lost, as if she was completely unsure of what was going on. She smiled way too much, and it didn't seem like a natural smile either. I haven't seen the Miss America Pageant since I was in high school. Mostly it seems so fake, the whole idea of it. What does Miss America really stand for? If we no longer had a pageant, would anyone notice? We did get her to do the Captain Morgan with us which was cool.

Urban Ops and Night Ops

Rob Reynolds — Sun, 15 Oct 2006 19:36:00 GMT

A couple of weeks ago we did Urban Operations. We did the training in the daytime and the actual during the nighttime because it has been said that we own the night. Why? The US Army is able to distribute night vision to every soldier it has. We have been able to mass produce the ability to see in the dark. That has set us ahead of everyone else in the world.

Urban Ops were pretty awesome. We learned how to clear a village or city, then we went in and cleared a place called Liberty City, which is a mock city that was created by Ft. Sill. I remember that if only we had the newer clips for the ACH with the NVGs, then it would have been easier to put it on my helmet than having to use 550 cord to get it secured. It was pretty sweet out there nevertheless. Plus we got to play our own OpFor (Opposing Forces). I elected not to do this because my weapon was one of the squad weapons and it was heavy enough just carrying it around through the city that I didn't want to go back out with it again. The SAW weighs somewhere around 25 lbs with ammo. I did watch what was going on as other squads went through and attempted to clear a building and our OpFor was just going crazy. It was pretty sweet.

We've been spotted!

Rob Reynolds — Sun, 08 Oct 2006 09:38:00 GMT

http://spotted.cjonline.com/pages/photo_page.php?m...

We went down to the Blue Moon Bash at the Capitol yesterday to look at cars and enjoy live music. CJOnline, which is the newspaper at Topeka, KS, came up and took our picture. They also took like 200 pictures of other people and cars. We went home and brought our dogs back up to the event because other people had dogs there as well. We had a blast!

http://www.bluemoonbash.com

US Weapons

Rob Reynolds — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 19:12:00 GMT

About a week ago we learned about the Mark 19, the .50 Calibre, the M240B, and the M249 SAW (Squad Automatic Weapon). We went through some classes this morning and then we went out and fired them. It was pretty sweet! I have video of me and some others firing the .50Cal. The Mark 19 was cool and it had huge rounds, but it was nothing like the .50Cal. Some of us wanted to fire more than once, but they ran out of ammo.

Then we went back to clean some SAWs because we had fired ours. That took some time, but I have the help of about five other people on my SAW, so that saved quite a bit of time. I am trying to get a link up to show the movie of a couple of us firing the .50Cal. It was AWESOME!

Update: Pix up at Flickr!

LASIK

Rob Reynolds — Sat, 07 Oct 2006 19:09:00 GMT

I just wanted to post a short note on LASIK surgery and how I am excited that I went ahead and had this surgery back in January. First of all, I no longer have to deal with glasses or contacts. It is amazing to get up every morning and be able to instantly see 20-15 without help from contacts or glasses. There is no irritation of having contacts in for too long or from accidentally falling asleep with my contacts in. I recommend it to anyone. If you are going to have the surgery done, you want to pick the best doctor there is for it. In the Kansas City area, I would highly recommend Dr. Jeffrey Couch at the Vision Correction Center. He is one of the best LASIK eye surgeons in the country. He has over 20 years experience with refractive eye surgery and has a 98% success rate. When you do have the surgery, they video tape your procedure and you get it on DVD when you go back in for a checkup the next day. The price is all inclusive, and usually you can find a coupon that will save you around $200 per eye. Right now for a limited time if you take in a sports ball or toy, they will donate it to Toys for Tots and you'll get $1299 per eye.

http://www.kansascity-lasik.com/

Visit from Brandi

Rob Reynolds — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:39:00 GMT

Last weekend my wife came down to visit me while here at BOLC. We have friends in the area which makes the stay cheaper, but it was still over $$$ to have her here. It is much cheaper for me to go visit her, because I have a smaller vehicle and I don’t have to board the dogs.

We went to do quite a bit this weekend. Our first stop was Common Grounds, which is a nice coffee shop here in Lawton. I actually like the coffee better than Starbucks and they have a nicer atmosphere, with free internet. After that we went right to lunch at Atlanta Bread Company. Supposedly the story is that Panera Bread was started by two brothers. At some point they got into a disagreement and one broke off and started Atlanta Bread Company. The food is pretty good there.

Our first stop along the tour was the Winery of the Wichitas (http://wineryofthewichitas.com/mainpage.htm). They have a wine tasting, which if you pay $5, you get to try all of the flavors and keep the wine glasses. We did that and found that we liked the Vignole. It is very flavorful and semi-sweet. The winery has live music on Friday Nights starting at 7PM. You want to get up there before the sunsets I hear, because it has a beautiful view out from it.

We were already in Medicine Park, which used to be a resort. We went on the drive around town, which included some of the touristy spots and houses up in the Big Rock Road area.

From there we went to Medicine Bluff, which is the spot where it is rumored that Geronimo jumped from. We took some pictures there and then moved onto the Fort Sill Museum. The museum is free and open to the public, and has quite a few artifacts of old, some with even Native American paraphernalia. They have plenty of cannons sitting outside as Ft. Sill is the home of the Field Artillery.

Our next stop was back at Emily and Terry's home for a few hours before we went to Rinie's Kitchen and Wine Bar (www.rinieskitchenandwinebar.com). This place had live music, I believe it was a violin. It was a very comfortable atmosphere that you want to dress up for. So we dressed up and went to it. The wait staff is excellent and the food tasted great! It really wasn't as expensive as we thought it would be either. We really enjoyed it.

The next morning we went to Starbucks and met up with our other person for the hike up Elk Mountain in the Wildlife Refuge. I have pictures up on flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/trueblue28/tags/elkmo...)so be sure to take a look at them. So we park at the base of this little mountain and begin our long journey to the top that only took about 30 minutes. The trail was well defined and we talked all the way up about all kinds of things. When we got to the top we walked around and found some areas with beautiful views! The pictures show the views. We saw a buffalo while we were up there all by himself hiding from the wind. We didn't want to go up to him, but we did want to get closer for some pictures, so we worked our way up to about 100 feet away so I could get a couple more snaps of him before we headed back down from the mountain. The trip down was much quicker than the trip up. Then we had a picnic which I still hear I need to take my wife on.

The Range

Rob Reynolds — Sun, 01 Oct 2006 11:37:00 GMT

A day at the range, or, um, a week.

Last week we went out to the range. We had some classes last week and this week we went to zero, night fire, and qualify.

One thing I have never used before is the M4 Carbine Rifle and it took some getting used to. One of the hardest things to get used to is not looking down those iron sights and trying to line them up anymore. All you do now is look through the laser sight (A.K.A. the CCO) and put the little red dot on the target. If you have it sighted properly, it should hit exactly where you put the dot. It is kind of nice except that it takes some getting used to. The Army's preferred firing of the CCO is with both eyes open. I have two eyes that are very close to both of them being dominant so the preferred method didn't quite work for me. It took me a little longer to zero my weapon as I had never used the new sight before. So here I am on a new weapon system, with a new aiming mechanism, and I am thinking, what else can we possibly screw up to make it hard for Rob to finish one of his graduation requirements (i.e. qualify with this stuff)? Let's add a new position to qualify from, and we'll make it slightly painful for you. Let's call it the "kneeling" position! So now instead of 20 shots from a fox hole (supported) and 20 shots in the prone unsupported position, now we are going to do 20 prone supported, 10 prone unsupported, and 10 shots from the kneeling. This position is awesome. It took me forever to find a good place for me to get my butt to rest on the heel of my foot.

So now we have a new weapon with a new sight, a new firing position, what else can we work into the equation? Oooh! How about 35 mile/hour winds! Yay! It took me twice to qualify, which it took most people, because those gusts made firing from kneeling nearly impossible. Last month in August using the old positions and the M16, I qualified expert with 36 out of 40. What did I get here? 27 out of a possible 40 points. Oh well, at least it is passing and that is all I care about. <grins>

Pictures are up at Flickr (http://www.flickr.com/photos/trueblue28/tags/bolc/) for some of what we did this week.

A Normal Day at BOLC (and in most TRADOC schools)

Rob Reynolds — Sat, 23 Sep 2006 10:27:00 GMT

0515 - Wake up

0555 - First Formation

0600-0602 - Reveille

0602-0700 - PT (Physical Training)

0700-0830 - GRF (get ready for) Training (Shower, dress, clean barracks, etc.)

0830-1700 - Training

1700-UTC - Supper and the day is ours

That is a normal day, sometimes we work more hours, sometimes we work less hours.

How many normal days would you say we have? Not very many. It varies from day to day when we get off of work. Ahh the life of an Army school. :D