Wait......Martin You Can Train???

Friday, September 3rd

Hey Everybody!

It's Friday and so far my legs/knees have managed to stay together. Yesterday I got my new running shoes which should help keep a lot of strain off my knees now that I know I need a specific type of shoe for my feet. It's kinda funny though because when we got back yesterday, we had to go yard twice. I ran that with my old shoes. Once we got back from the second run, we were handed out mail, which of course, contained my new shoes.

So since my last letter updating you with the results of my X-Rays and my RTD, a lot has happened. We spent Tuesday and Wednesday night out in the field. We worked on more squad and team movements, reacting to fire, flanking, and indirect (mortar) attacks. We also had to set up security at our patrol base through out the night which requires about 8 - 10 ppl. up at one point. So because of that I pulled 3 shifts on Wednesday night.... We also used Wednesday and Thursday night to work on our Hasty Fire Positions (aka Ranger Graves) which is basically a 3 ft deep foxhole.
So digging these are fun as you can imagine....especially when you run into tree roots....or an ant hill..... You can't really control what they do because you're sleeping in that position for the night and the red ants love running around and show up out of nowhere when you mess with their hill. Eitherway it was GREAT to get back out there and train with everyone again, and actually feel apart of my platoon again.

Today was another good day. We headed out early to a range where we got to shoot the .50 cal. machine gun and the Mark-19 Automatic Grenade Launcher! To put it nicely, I don't want to be on either end of those. The Mark-19 is effective up to 4 miles away and I think everyone knows either from a story or war movie, what a .50 cal can do. Supposedly Blackhawk Down is the most accurate depiction. What was really cool today was how you could see the rounds from the MK-19 as they were being fired, so you could follow the round for a little while. We shot in 5 round bursts, so you just see a streak of 5 black objects flying out towards an old tank on this huge field, and then 5 explosions all around. The U.S. Army has some awesome fire power!

I guess that's kinda the short version of the events. I'm currently being distracted by the "spoon" game. Basically 2 people sit across from each other with a spoon in their mouth. One person puts their head down, and the other person slaps the back of their head with the spoon. Here's the thing, you can't slap it hard at all with just your head, so there is a third person in on it. The third person slaps the back of the gullible persons head. So gullible person is trying to slap hard but can't. He puts his head down and the person across from him acts like he's hitting him, when actually the third guy is slapping the back of the gullible guys head. Well, gullible guy is from my platoon and he honestly couldn't figure it our for the life of him. I wish I had a camera to record it!!!

Anyway, I still don't know if I'm staying for being restarted....hopefully I find out soon....Tomorrow we're going to the Infantry museum, so I'll get to spend more time there seeing what I didn't get a chance to catch over family weekend. There is an I-Max theater there, and I'm wishfully thinking/hoping I'll be able to catch a movie, but........probably not....HAHA!

That's all for now everyone.

Love you & Take Care
SPC Martin

PS - Still no duty station yet...hopefully next week
PPS

GO MIZZOU!!!!!!!