A Bit of A Break

This past week's training have not been too taxing on us.... It was sort of a break from the huge physical demands on us..... We concentrated on basic soldier skills like Call For Fire, using the Guardfist simulations device. We also did Cordon and Search.. Now this could have been some great training. Fort Riley have a different mentality when it comes to training. They gloss over the training in class, then they expect you to conduct the training to standard during an exercise. This particular training/exercise is a huge training requirement for us/ETTs for our mission in Afghanistan.... What happens is they let you conduct the training, then they evaluate your operation. Needless to say, that many of us are hands-on/visual people and it is much better to go show you on the ground how it is done, then allow you to do it.... Many of the teams struggled with the scenarios, but got better after each iteration....

Following this event we began our specialized training. SFC Walsh and I participated in the Advance Commo Training on the Harris 150/117 radios. Some of the others in the team went through Medical and Counter Insurgency Operations Training.

This week's Training went into the weekend on Saturday evening. We kinda expected it, since we had Monday off due to the Easter Holiday.... However when the training ended we let our proverbial hair down, (I guess, those with hair!!)

In this first picture is LTC Shawn Harris, my Omega Fraternity Brother and myself hanging out in the back of the billet... LTC Harris is from Michigan and is leading one of the Michigan Teams....

Some of our other Frat Brothers made their way down to Camp Funston to check on us... You see we had a good time....

In this other pic. Is one of the Afghan Trainers having some fun with us during our Cultural Training.... They go over scenarios that have occurred in theatre and assist us in ensuring that we deal with them properly. Really gives us a great start on how to effectively interact with our Afghan Counterparts...

Also depicted is SGM Mike Elvington, (the Horse) of the team. SGM Elvington is a stud.... strong as an ox, very knowledgeable. This is his second Afghan deployment....... He don't have to worry too much about being challenged.... He is quite intimidating... Also pictured with him is SFC Post from Michigan and COL Cannon...


This upcoming week returns to the field. We are schedule to began our Crew-serve Weapons Qualification, day and night. So we expect to be out in the field late into the night to get this done.....