National Guard January Drill

Alrighty then, the pictures to the left are obviously me in uniform, I swear it looks a whole lot less dorky when we're in formation with all 100 of us. Normally there would be a rank patch in the center of my chest but they ran out of patches for my rank and I will not receive one until next drill.

For January's drill we did what was called weapons immersion which consisted of weaponry mechanics and BRM (by the way, if you haven't read my other post yet do that first). When I arrived at 0845 I was directed to get a Gortex (ACU jacket) and an MRE from Private Biggins (the girl I accidentally hurt at last drill). When I reached her she informed me in a very polite and friendly manner that no matter how much crap I got at drill there were no hard feelings between us and that we were all squared away. She then warned me that I would be getting a lot of crap that drill.

We then moved in to the PT phase of drill at 0900 and I did 43 push ups in my minute which is still not amazing but is 6 more than last month and I didn't run out of steam even at the very end. When I moved to the back of the line after my push ups my MSG (Master Sergeant) MSG Gordeley (also an awesome guy, he's the highest rank we see at drill) and he informed me that the "other" PVT Goodale had come to drill. This other PVT Goodale is someone who I have heard about every time I do something new on post and who I receive calls about on a fairly regular basis. His father is a West Point grad and a colonel in the IDARNG. He is also named Christopher and Colonel Goodale's first name is ironically John as well. I've never met him but I've heard about him all the time. MSG Gordeley than told me that he was going to have the two of us fight and then the winner would fight PVT Biggins. He then said, "You hurt her last month by the way. Even if they don't tap out, when the tears start, you usually stop. You underestimate your own strength PVT Goodale." There are few things that are better than having your MSG tell you that you underestimate your own strength, even if it's preceded by a tongue-in-cheek chastisement.

During the sit up portion of the PT test I did 36 sit ups, down two from last month. Not because I was tired, I had energy to go at the same pace for another 30 seconds without slowing but I could not figure out how to do full sit ups faster than I was already doing them. It was frustrating. When we went out to do our run I met PVT Goodale for the first time. He graduated from Bishop Kelly High School (a local Catholic school) last year and is now attending ISU and is in the ROTC. He was accepted to West Point but decided he didn't want to be in that atmosphere. He is a couple of inches taller than me and outweighs me by 34 pounds but we have a very similar build, a similar facial structure and about the same haircut. We even have the same model of cell phone. Kinda weird. We got along very well though. However, he had gotten 51 push ups and 57 sit ups so I wanted to stay as close to him as possible in the run which resulted in my dropping 12 seconds to 6:26 which put me 10 seconds behind him which isn't bad. Cool guy though.

We then were sent to our barracks to eat and change into ACUs and we had 43 minutes to do that and be back in formation. We had to change barracks once and had trouble getting our linens squared away so by the time I was dressed I only had time to crack open my MRE and eat a small amount of each part of the MRE. I then rushed back outside to get back in formation since we were all supposed to be formed up, accounted for and ready to move out at either 1110 or 1210. I arrived outside at about whatever:00 and was accounted for and ready to move about 5 minutes later. However, some of the people in our battalion treat RSP as they do school and not as a military unit. Therefore, we had people running out at 12:12 improperly dressed (no caps, unzipped Gortexs, etc.). MSG Gordeley and SFC (Sergeant First Class) Stace (my recruiter and drill sergeant) were both VERY unhappy. Especially since they had informed us on the way to the barracks that this month's drill would focus on getting our discipline back. Because of this we received a half-decent amount of yelling since the first time since I joined and we were smoked since the first time since I joined. (Being smoked by the way is when you are punished with PT). We were required to stay in the push-up position until we were all accounted for by our squad leaders but he had us flip over and do flutter kicks after a while because some people could not hold themselves anymore. It was difficult but I've had worse at water polo and football practices and we desperately needed to be smoked. You should not ever be running out half-dressed to formation after the departure time. But we eventually moved out and went to our first stations.

Our first station was going over the M249. It is the fully automatic rifle to the left. It was created in the 1980s as a replacement to the M16A1 (the automatic version of the M16)which was found to be a poor replacement for the Browning Automatic Rifle (BAR). It fires a 5.56mm round 850 rounds per minute with a maximum effective range of 1000 meters with open sights which means that at 1000 meters the M249 is accurate with only the sights you see in the picture to the left. The M249 has a maximum range of 3600 meters (that range is essentially pure flight distance). We learned how to clear, disassemble, reassemble, load and fire this weapon along with all the other weapons we worked with. These weapons are surprisingly easy to take apart and I was shocked that the M249 only weighs 17.5 pounds.

We then moved to a class where we essentially just updated our info with the Guard and made sure our military emails and other sites were squared away. We were with MSG Gordeley and PVT Biggins again at this point and when MSG Godeley found out that the other Goodale outweighed me and outperformed me in PT he informed me that I still had the upper hand because I had the ability to say that I had kicked Biggins' butt and he didn't. He also told me I was still PVT Goodale 1 to him and would always be the original PVT Goodale despite his fathers' rank. He also told me that Col. Goodale had told the guys at Gowen that if they were to mess with a PVT Goodale to make sure it was PVT Christopher D. Goodale (him) and not PVT Christopher J. Goodale (me) which everyone found funny especially since his son belongs to A Company and B Company has a nice rivalry with A Company. I'm glad I was first though because it allowed me to get the right email and he got screwed up. I am christopher.goodale and he had to be c.d.goodale.

We then moved to an M4 carbine class. The M4 is the same as the M16A2 (the Army staple) and shares about 80% of its parts with the M16A2 but has a shorter barrel and a telescoping butt stock for short-range combat. Both guns weigh 7.5 pounds. We did the same clearing, disassembling, reassembling and firing procedures as on the M249 and went into the proper way to clean a weapon. We then listened to some awesome war stories from SGT Waters (SFC Stace's brother-in-law and my second favorite soldier in our platoon).

We then moved on to the M16A2 class where we briefly covered the same procedures as with the other weapon and then moved on to marksmanship fundamentals (Position, Aiming, Breathing, Trigger Squeeze). We then learned how to aim properly and were required to squeeze the trigger to fire an unloaded M16A2 with a dime balancing on the front sight to make sure our trigger pull was good. We proceeded from there to do a training exercise where we shot targets in the building with a laser mounted in the barrel which was recorded by the targets we were shooting. My sight picture was not the greatest at first but by the end I was finishing withing the top three soldiers in my 12 man squad and hitting nearly dead-center mass at 250 yards very consistently.

We finished up there and were back in our barracks around 2130 with lights out at 2200. I was smart enough to volunteer early for fireguard and got the first shift so I was in bed about 2300 with lights on at 0400 so that we could be in formation and ready to go by 0530 to make chow at 0600. I slept in my boots, pants and shirt on top of the covers in case one of the morons outside got caught smoking and we had to go out and get smoked in the middle of the night and to save myself some time for sleeping. I would have slept very well except for the antics of PVT Grzadzieleski (no I'm not kidding) who woke up the whole barracks at 0215 running around the bay pretending to be MSG Gordeley. Despite this however, I slept well enough to be wide awake the next morning and still going right now at 2148. Luckily, our battalion learned its lesson and we were all present and accounted for before the drill sergeants even showed up.

We then traveled down to the FATS (Fire Arms Training System), where they had modified M16A2s to fit air hoses into them that made them kick like a real M16A2 while we fired them down a digital BRM qualifying range. At this range we had targets pop up from 50-300 meters away (simulated) and we had a certain amount of time to hit them depending on how far out they were. We had 20 shots in the prone supported position, 10 in the prone unsupported position and 10 in the kneeling position. We had to hit 23 out of 40 to qualify and I had 21 after the first 30 but only was able to hit one while kneeling. Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties and I did not get a chance to try again but I am nonetheless fairly confident with the M16A2 now.
Our next class was the M240B class. The M240B is the largest rifle we have that is carried by a single soldier as far as I know. It is different from the other three in that it is the only one that does not use 5.56mm ammo. Instead it uses 7.62mm ammo which is NATO ammo and can be interchanged with most NATO weapons and AK-47s. It is the heaviest gun we worked with at 27.6 pounds and unless you are carrying it with the carrying handle in the center it feels like a heck of a lot more than that. This gun fires as much as 950 rounds per minute but the heat is so much that if more than 200 are fired in one minute the weapon must be allowed to cool for 15 minutes to prevent a "cook off" which causes rounds to go off prematurely due to the heat of firing the previous shells. We also timed ourselves in the clearing, disassembly, reassembly, functions check and loading and I was the fastest in our squad with a time of 3 minutes 51 seconds when starting with a loaded weapon. Not bad for a newbie I think.

When we finished our final station we returned to building 521 which is themain building for the RSP. While we were waiting for the other guys to finish up we sat around and talked and the sergeants told stories and argued about things like the necessity of an NCAA championship. Once the other squads arrived we started our major cleanup of the base, our barracks, and our weapons. However, the 15 series guys (people with my MOS and other MOSs in my area) were pulled out because the 183rd commander had come to talk to us and meet the troops who would be joining his unit after training was complete. There were six of us who went to talk to him. I am one of four 15Xs in our battalion. We will all have the job of fixing the electrical systems on the AH-64 Apache. We are also responsible for loading the weapons systems on the Apaches. The other two soldiers were both MOS 15R and will be responsible for the mechanical systems on the Apaches. All six of us wish to eventually become pilots. According to the Captain, 15X is the busiest MOS because the electrical systems are constantly failing on the Apaches. He says we also get a lot of respect from, and correspondence with, the pilots. One of the reasons for this is that we load and ready their weapons systems which is cool. He said we have a lot more to do than the 15Rs and we'll feel like we are drinking out of a fire hose for the first couple years but that we'll have a blast doing it. He also told us that we have a tendency to gain the first few ranks after basic more quickly than he'd like and that sometimes hurts us since we haven't learned enough yet. I can see where he's coming from but I'm not going to complain about gaining rank. We also talked about the path to being a pilot and he said there's generally about 10 spots per year and all six of us that were new are interested in being a pilot eventually. So it'll be competitive but not too terrible I hope. I'm glad to be a part of the 183rd though because we have the best flight record in the nation and we've received tons of accolades from other commanders including Iraqi generals. So I'm lucky to be where I'm at. After this we did a quick AAR (which my dad's half-brother informed me means After Action Report) and I was able to come home.