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Sunday, January
28th, 2001
1418 - FTX
Sittign @ our fire (yeah, due to the cold our SGL's authorized it-- real tactical I know). A bags loaded up on a Hmmv, waer cans, last bag of garbage...we're pretty much all just dozing and keeping the fire going. Despite my fears, it wasn't too cold afterall, or at least I handled it better than I hoped. Apparently it was @ 25 degrees this morning at 0530 -> wakeup time. Things kicked of Friday with the CH 47 jump...it was sweet! Ramp position did get taken from me, some SSGs we're doin a little CH 47 JM refresher so...We all got tapepd out anyways so it didn't matter any...About a five second drop...hair longer than the 3.2 from a C130. There was just enough time to feel a bit of a rush. The CH 47 drops at 90 knots, as compared to the 130 on the C130, so it takes the chute a bit longer to open...also explains the higher AGL of 1500, compared to the normal 1200 to 800 AGL of a C130 drop. It was a cold cold morning but it warmed up a little, and BOB...dear old Bob, came smilign upon us. Steering with toggles...wow! I took a few pictures -- can't wait to get this roll developed. After the jump the whole teaching class loaded up on the Chinook for
the Air Mobile to the Land Nav/Field site. After deloading and moving
to the TOC, we zeroed our Miles gear (I hate this shit -- almost worthless
and the added weight, although not much, sucks after a while--particually
on the helmet piece...) and we "rucked" @ 500 meters (hahahahahh!) to our
patrol base site. The hasty fighting position area I was assigned
to was pretty much already dug out for me (nice!) and the ground was soft
and sandy anyways (Double Nice!). We did night land Nav in groups
of three,and, bonehead me, trusted Garcia and Rodriguez to due the plotting...well
I found plots where they plotted, but they were awfully wrong in the plotting--wrong
points and an extra 3 clicks at least to get there--walking the damn firebreaks
too!
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