more BOLC-II

There has been a lot going on in BOLC II. Most of the stuff we have done here is very standard training. We did combatives, as I mentioned. That is hand-to-hand combat techniques. It was uninteresting. We did basic shooting. Again, standard stuff. We had a 4 day pass, which I used to insert myself briefly in to New york, and then I left. We came back to a week in the FOB. I am now back for week 2 in the FOB.

A FOB is a Forward Operating Base. it si a mock-up of the type of thing that the US builds when it goes in to a country and sets up camp. It is a tiny little Army base. It actually sucks a lot. We had to do a land navigation exercize. I passed the first time, but it basically involved wandering around the woods a lot. A good chunk of it was in the dark. We also learned a lot of skills like how to "clear" a room (of people). There was a lot of shooting too: in rooms, from vehicles, in burms, on hills. . .

Some of the more gung-ho people here seem to love this crap. I don't. But I am doing the best I can, and putting up with this as well as anyone else, I suppose.
We have a ten-mile road march that will culminate this stay in the FOB and essentially our training for this part. We will then have a stupid week of form-filling, where we "out-process" this phase of training. I can't wait for this to be over. Then I have a few days off. Following that I am off to phase 3, which will be in Virginia.

Georgia is a very hot. The FOB in Fort Benning is even hotter. There is also a ton of humidity. The weather sucks.

Hopefully I make it through unscathed.