I've been to hell, and it's fucking cold!
After basic I was shipped to my regular unit in KY. I was still "hard core" being straight out of basic. My boots were still spit shined. My uniforms were fresh and well pressed. My attitude was good. I was ready to take on my duties as a "gun bunny", as we were known in artillery. The regular army was almost a culture shock compared to basic training. It was more like your average 9-5 job with the exception of having to get up at ungodly hours in the morning to exercise every day. Being low man on the totem pole I had to do all the crapiest jobs including pulling CQ (guard duty where you don't really guard anything) on Christmas and New Years. I, quite quickly, became jaded and adopted well to the rest of the unit. In January our unit was shipped off to JRTC (war games) for the first time. Basically you go into the woods for a month and fight an enemy of guerilla fighters to test the readiness of your unit. It was a combined arms affair and easily the worst month of my life.
The list of reasons this deployment sucked was a mile long. The worst part of it, for me, was the fact that the temperatures rarely climbed above zero. Try to imagine staying out in the cold for an entire month with no heat in negative temperatures. For a tropical person, like me, it sucked to the highest order. My only salvation was my sleeping bag. When we first got there and were prepping to enter the game, we were marshaled in big circus-type tents. Within these tents were a hundred or more cots and a bunch of propane heaters. As we were arriving, it began to snow. There was enough white stuff falling that it accumulated rather quickly. It was nice to be able to sleep inside the big tents as we prepared our equipment for the "war." Somewhere around 10 PM I was awakened from my only place of refuge (sleeping bag) and told there was a problem. What happened was the snow that had accumulated on the top of these tents was starting to get heavy. The tents were coming apart at the seams and water was leaking in. The solution...send all the low ranking folks (me) out to shovel the snow off the tents. So I climbed out of my salvation to fight my first enemy...The snow. As I was gearing up into my parka, mittens, long johns, and anything else I could put on. My crew chief stopped me and asked me what the hell I was doing. I told him I was getting ready to get the snow off the tent. He laughed at me and told me if I go out in that I'm going to ruin all my cold weather gear before I fight the "war" by getting it wet. He made me strip down to my long johns and put on my rain suit. So out I went in -7 degree weather in long johns and a rain coat. I was pushed up to the top of the tent where I was given a broom (WTF?!?) to shovel the snow off the tent. My attitude deteriorated to say the least. After spending about an hour futilely sweeping snow, my first enemy was conquered. I retired to my salvation for a whole 2 hours of sleep before it was time to go fight then enemy in earnest.
The list of reasons this deployment sucked was a mile long. The worst part of it, for me, was the fact that the temperatures rarely climbed above zero. Try to imagine staying out in the cold for an entire month with no heat in negative temperatures. For a tropical person, like me, it sucked to the highest order. My only salvation was my sleeping bag. When we first got there and were prepping to enter the game, we were marshaled in big circus-type tents. Within these tents were a hundred or more cots and a bunch of propane heaters. As we were arriving, it began to snow. There was enough white stuff falling that it accumulated rather quickly. It was nice to be able to sleep inside the big tents as we prepared our equipment for the "war." Somewhere around 10 PM I was awakened from my only place of refuge (sleeping bag) and told there was a problem. What happened was the snow that had accumulated on the top of these tents was starting to get heavy. The tents were coming apart at the seams and water was leaking in. The solution...send all the low ranking folks (me) out to shovel the snow off the tents. So I climbed out of my salvation to fight my first enemy...The snow. As I was gearing up into my parka, mittens, long johns, and anything else I could put on. My crew chief stopped me and asked me what the hell I was doing. I told him I was getting ready to get the snow off the tent. He laughed at me and told me if I go out in that I'm going to ruin all my cold weather gear before I fight the "war" by getting it wet. He made me strip down to my long johns and put on my rain suit. So out I went in -7 degree weather in long johns and a rain coat. I was pushed up to the top of the tent where I was given a broom (WTF?!?) to shovel the snow off the tent. My attitude deteriorated to say the least. After spending about an hour futilely sweeping snow, my first enemy was conquered. I retired to my salvation for a whole 2 hours of sleep before it was time to go fight then enemy in earnest.
posted by Glenn at 2:24 AM
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