The last week sucked because we had the pleasure of sleeping out in below freezing temperatures, running until someone quit, a 6 mile ruck-march (run) after 2 straight days of land nav, and possibly some of the shittiest weather I've ever seen for our last iteration of land nav on thursday. I think we had like 5 or 6 cases of hypothermia and a ton of people just plain get sick. Nothing like being on azimuth cold, wet and pissed off, and then seeing that massive draw looming in your path
This next week is supposed to be pretty easy though, so I'm glad to say I've made it this far. All we have left is the mini-star land navigation exercise (9 hours for 4 points), a PT test, and an obstacle course. Then, we find out if we made all of the standards to move on to selection. My class started with 280 people total. At the end of week 3 we had 107 people left, and not all of them will have made the standards to graduate.
Despite that attrition rate, there are still a whole lot of dumb motherfuckers that are still in the class that I think shouldn't be. For example, three people LOST their rubber ducks out in the NTA during thursday's night iteration. Four people have lost RUCKSACKS while looking for points. I do not even understand how that is remotely possible. The thing NEVER leaves your back, and if it does, you keep it in sight at all times. The cadre told us that they had never seen anything like that in their entire career. Thank God for that. One guy in my platoon was found 15 miles out of the NTA 2 hours after endex on thursday. He set the course record for distance travelled from the training area while land naving. He quit the next day.
It's been a tiring course, but I have enjoyed a lot of the freedoms they gave us (nights sometimes and weekends off) and I've definately learned a ton. It feels really good to actually be getting something accomplished towards my goals in the Army instead of sitting around in that damned harness shed at Airborne school or standing around in formation for hours on end at OSUT. I should be headed to selection in a week or two, assuming I don't fuck up the mini-star. I'll report back here after that 21 day course at Camp Mackall -- I'm hoping for the best.
