Field Exercises

We just spent the week in the field. It went pretty well and we got a lot of good training out of it. We patrolled around in the rain all day Monday and Tuesday. Tuesday was an 18 hour day that started at 5:30am. We patrolled around our training area all day performing various types of missions. When night finally fell, we broke out the night vision goggles for some practical application. Being so close to the timezone and to the longest day of the year, we couldn't even start our night operations until after 9:30pm. Wednesday we convoyed back to our training center-and then the sun came out.

I also learned that organic bug spray does not work. I was a buffet for mosquitos. At night I would rub hand sanitizer and foot powder on my bites. Not sure if it was the best thing for my skin, but it stopped the itching long enough for me to fall asleep under my awesome makeshift tarp tent.