Yet another fun week of combat training under our collective belts. And you know, I’m not sure if that’s sarcastic or not. If I was saying it to one of the guys here, it would be absolutely sarcastic, but as I look back over what we’ve been doing, some of it has, in some perverse way, been fun.

It highlights something I’ve noticed about being in the military: everything is amplified. When things suck, they really, really suck–quite a bit more than the day-to-day civilian suckiness. It’s why the Marines assign the word suck with its own definite article. All the little things which are merely annoyances by themselves add to all the big problems you’d never encounter in the civilian world and together they compound into something utterly foul: The Suck. Contrariwise, the fun parts can be a lot of fun–moreso than what the average person gets with the standard-issue recreation.

We started the week with an NBC class. The focus this time was on three things: donning and sealing the gas mask in nine seconds, donning the NBC suit in eight minutes, and decontaminating oneself with activated charcoal after a chemical attack. The gas mask by itself was no trouble. Nine seconds isn’t a long time, but it’s enough to get the mask sealed against your face.

The NBC suit is a full body, charcoal lined protective suit which includes rubber boots and gloves, and gets cinched around the gas mask. It’s a hassle to get on (it requires a partner, for one thing) but once donned it theoretically protects against a plethora of nasty things whose use would violate the Geneva conventions. In this case, eight minutes seems like a long time, but you do need almost the full eight minutes to get fully suited up.

Finally, there are the decontamination procedures (decon, for short). It involves wiping any exposed skin with a patch of activated charcoal, which is designed to absorb and neutralize chemical agents. If you’re thinking that charcoal in any form–such as a briquette or an artist’s stick–leaves black carbon residue against anything it touches, you would be right. Done correctly, the decon left us standing there with our faces and hands scrubbed to a healthy dark grey. Pictures, of course, were a must.

Over the next few days, we had the PMI (Preliminary Marksmanship Instruction) and got some range time for some of the heavier guns. The M4 is a fantastic weapon but qualifying on the M240B and having a chance to fire (though not qual) on the 50 cal was definitely worth the extra long hours.

The heavy weapons were followed by the M9 (9mm sidearm) qual. I already have my sharpshooter qualification through the Navy, and while I’ll be the first to admit that the Navy’s qual is a joke, at least I had some prior experience with the weapon. I knew the Army’s qual would not be a problem. I qualified the first time through on everything (day, night and NBC), and got decent to high scores, as well.

The biggest event of the week, however, didn’t happen until Friday. Early in the morning, we packed nearly all our gear and headed out of cantonment to the Forward Operating Base. The training FOB is designed to mimic conditions in Iraq. Ironically, it’s better than the barracks in some respects–although the things that are worse are quite a bit worse.

The consensus is that it sucks, but I don’t think it’s really that bad–with one exception. No internet in my rack. The wireless just barely reaches into our tent and a few guys can get it with their newfangled laptops, but my computer doesn’t pick it up. This letter was typed on my computer, but I borrowed a friend’s to send it.

We did land navigation over the weekend. The first day was mounted: taking two military GPS units and a HMMWV and driving around in the woods trying to find markers. I was the truck commander for the exercise, and I’m happy to report that our group did awesome. We burned through the course; even though we were the second to last group to start, we were the second group to finish.

Sunday was unmounted land nav. For those exercises, I was the group’s pace counter. Between myself pacing distances and our compass guy shooting azimuths, we got within ten yards of our target marker every time. This is easier said than done. The woods were overgrown with briars, but even when we had to go around impassible tangles of thick, thorny brush, the pace count and azimuth remained accurate. More than anything, it was a confidence builder: I’m now confident that I can navigate difficult terrain–a confidence that will last right up to the minute I need to do it again.

We have another few days at the FOB before returning to barracks. It is a lot of fun. But the fun is always overshadowed by the job ahead. Maybe that’s where the ambiguity of the sarcasm comes in. As fun as some of our training evolutions are, no one forgets that they serve a greater purpose. Something that isn’t so fun. The Suck.

-Ted