A very big Army HOOAH to all of you out there! Now that I’m in Advanced Individual Training (AIT) I have access to a LOT more priviledges and free time than I did in Basic Training. I’ll be posting my weekly letters directly to Ben’s website now so there won’t be any delay at all. Although, I have to admit…Human Resources Specialist training is really not as exciting as Basic Combat training. So letters from Ft. Jackson might be more bland then they were from Ft. Knox.

But regardless I will be online now and relieving the Brewster family from having to type my extremely long letters (which I thank them very much for doing). The following is my last letter from Basic Training. I will write another post about my first experiences at AIT later (mainly because this next letter is so long)

—

Saturday, 26 May 2007 (the 26th is the start date of this letter, it was written over the course of several days)

Well this is it everyone. I can’t believe this will be my last letter written from the School of Hard Knox. If you get this little correspondence by Thursday (like I expect) I will be having a family day with Amy here on Post [Of course this didn't happen, hence you getting this letter on the internet instead of by mail]. I plan on taking her to some of the locations where hightlites from Basic Training occured (BRM, gas chamber, road march routes, barracks, chow hall, etc) [This didn't happen either because Amy was unable to rent a car and we had to take a taxi everywhere we went]. And in addition to that I’m going to take the opportunity to eat whatever the heck I want whenever the heck I want. I plan on hitting up junk food or fast food every couple of hours during the whole day. Yeah, all that good junk food and candy and fast food you guys take for granted and probably try to avoid most of the tim? It’s like yearning for the promised land to a private in Basic Training. A little bit like what missionaries feel when they’re in the field and lead restrictive lifestyles…on like fifty times more intense.

First off, before I get into my updates for this week (which are awesome by the way because we had our blue phase FTX) I need to respond directly to some letters that I received [Obviously these are old letters and I'm about to write answers to some questions that people asked a while ago].

My parents asked how I did on my PT test. Not too shabby would be an appropriate answer. The APFT (Army Physical Fitness Test) is composed of 2 minutes of push-ups, 2 minutes of sit-ups, and a 2 mile run. For my final PT test I did 46 push-ups, 58 sit-ups, and ran my 2 mile in 13:48. I was actually kind of disapointed in the results because for my previous PT test I managed to get 52 push-ups (grrr…). But I’m very happy with my run time. I have been consistently improving my time the entire time I’ve been here. When I first got here my 2 mile run time was something like 15:54. While I’m in AIT I’m to going to shoot for the Army PT badge. It’s a little nifty patch on my PT uniform that signifies I’ve scored at least a 270 on my PT test with at least 90 in each category. That doesn’t mean 90 push-ups though. Each raw score (exact number of repetitions) is assigned a number score. These are added for an arbitrary indicator of how Army Strong I am. My final APFT score for BCT was 238 (the max is 300). I’m really going to shoot for that 270 at AIT. A high PT score looks really good in a personnel file being reviewed for approval in branch application, and I really want to get into military inteligence as an officer…really, really, really.

Let’s see…Amy asked what time we wake up in the morning. On average we wake up at 4Am. Some days are different, like Sundays when we wake up at 5am or so. Lights off is usually 10pm but on weeks where we were doing tough training we went to bed at 9pm. Amy also asked if my battle buddies have thick accents. Uh…yeah. Like you would not believe. I mean not all of them but I have heard accents so thick (especially the southern ones) that I have to ask them to repeat what they said two or three times. There’s also some really thick Eastern accents (from New York City for example) that I’ve been around too. And of course there’s the midwestern accents that are occaisonally a cross between southern and western accents. You have to remember though that pretty much ALL the civilians here have really thick southern accents because they’re all from Kentucky. And no, fortunately, I am not picking up a southern accent but occaisonally I catch myself speaking with one if I’m talking to someone with a thick accent themselves.

Mom Murdock wrote me a great letter about visiting Amy and the kids a while back. I am SO glad that we have such awesome extended family support and such great Grandparents for Marcus and Emma. Both sets are the best any kid could ask for. Thank you all for keeping me abrest of what the kids are doing–it is so hard to be away from them while they’re in the middle of growing up so fast. I can’t believe how much older Marcus sounds on the phone–wow!

Alright, now to the part where a lot of you tune out…my gamer buddies. Nate, thanks for the update on the Halo 3 beta. How many of you were ultimately able to get into it anyway? Does it dynamically update in response to feedback? Or is Bungie making a laundry list of changes and doing it all later? Hey, any update on the single player game yet? New trailers? Media campaigns? Sinch this is the final Halo installment I expect Microsoft to get in on the marketing of this one big time but I guess we’ll wait and see.

Any other games out there right now perking everyone’s interest? Did ya’ll get GRAW2? Has ther been any updates or new content for RS:V yet (like the M4 Carbine)? You know what’s kind of strange? With all of this tactical Army combat training and indoctrination, you konw what game I’ve been craving the most lately? Oblivion. Go figure eh? That game has such a strong replay value and addiction factor. Any word on new RPGs coming out soon for the 360?

Alright, alright, alright…Let’s get down to business–the Blue Phase FTX. This FTX was a culmination of all skills and training that we had done up to that point. It was as close to being actually deployed in the field under combat conditions as one can get. We started the week out (yes the FTX was 3 days and 3 nights long) by marching from the barracks to the FOB (Forward Operating Base) with loaded rucksacks. Our rucksacks weighed about 50 lbs. The road march to the FOB was approximately 10 km. The US uses FOBs all over Iraq and Afghanistan as semi-permanent bases and staging areas for company or battalion size forces. It usually consists of a seven or eight foot wall of some solid material (ours was made of stacked railroad ties) surrounded by Concertina wire on the outside with intermitent guard towers and watch stations. Inside the walls are large tents or prefab buildings set up for different purposes - barracks, TOC (tactical operations center), aid station (sometimes a full field hospital in larger FOBs), ammunition point, mess hall, classroom, etc). There was also a front gate and checkpoint facilities right outside that. Thingks like road barriers, holding areas, guardhouse, machine gun nest, etc. Our FOB was set up by the 146th Infantry Battalion and is used by all BCT soldiers during their final phase of training at Ft. Knox. Once we arrived at the FOB we set up camp and assigned duties and tasks among the 4 different platoons including 24 hour guards posted in the towers, at the gate, and around the walls, a quick reaction force, and a detail that worked in the TOC and at the ammo point. While I was there I pulled duty as guard in the towers, around the walls, and manning the radio in the TOC.

Everything was realistically played out while we stayed at the FOB. We carried our weapons at the low ready 24/7. We were all issued 70 rounds of blank 5.56 mm ammunition for our M4s (and we had M249s and M240Bs with blank ammo in the guard towers) which I was actually put in charge of distributing. Every night we were there we experienced enemy contact of one kind or another. The role of the OPFORs was played by our Drill SGTs and cadre. Everything was very Iraq and/or Afghanistan in feel and flavor. Right down to the OPFORs Middle Eastern accents, attire, and tactics. We were mortared, probed, assaulted, and simply just approached by civilians and we had to react appropriately to it every time. Unfortunately, we weren’t successful all the time (rules of engagement don’t sink in right away to immature 19 year old soldiers who grew up on Rambo movies and violent video games). It was still a pretty fun time though. More than once we received indirect fire or an attack at the gate and we all had to jump out of our cots, throw on our full battle rattle and run to our assigned posts. The whole time we were at the FOB I never fired a round (fire discipline my friends, fire discipline) but it was still lots of fun nontheless.

I especially like pulling duty at the TOC. It was fun being in the nerve center of the action and seeing how the engagements or encounters developed from inside command and control. There were always at least 2 Drill SGTs on duty in the TOC that were on our “side”. We also had a map of the area inside, a large SINCGARS radio that we monitored and used to communicate with Ft Knox range control, a map of the FOB, and a telephone that was connected directly to all four guard towers (if the towers wanted to report anything they would just pick up the phone in the tower and it would automatically call the TOC).

During the days at the FOB we were transported to different sites to conduct “missions”. We did some patrols in the woods, a convoy live-fire exercise where we fired at targets from a moving vehicle, and my personal favorite, urban combat operations with paintball gear. For the convoy live fire I actually pulled front gate guard duty for the rand all day long with another soldier — so that consisted of chilling out in the shade all day long just waiting for vehicles to come in or out and checking their ID and calling it in to the Range Control tower.

We also did some AA (assembly area) and fighting position procedures trainging but I missed that too because I had a doctor’s appointment in Elizabethtown for my nose. I rode with one of my Drill SGTs to the appointment and we shot the breeze a little on the way there (that was kind of fun and a change of pace). At the appointment they offered to completely straighten my nose which is still about 1/8 of an inch off center. But I said no because it would have to splinted and I’d be on bed rest for 10 days and miss a whole bunch of training and the 15 km road march back to the barracks (which is a graduation requirement).

The urban ops missions were the hi-light of the week for me. It was quite frustrating at time because of how un-tactically minded most young BCT soldiers are (especially non-combat arms ones). I was thinking the whole time how much more effective I would be with a team of soldiers consisting of my close friends and brothers.

It was still an adrenaline pumping time though. I took the role of RTO (radio telephone operator) in the squad. I was in charge of the hand held radio which was used to call in Sitreps (situation reports) , LACE (liquid, ammuntion, casualty, equipment) reports, and 9 line medavac requests. It was just like in the movies at times. Gunshots (ok, well paintballs) roaring over head, soldiers yelling everywhere, and me screaming reports and requests for medevac over the radio. It was great.

Everything culminated in a long 15 km road march back to the barracks starting at 12am at night and ending sometime around 5:30am. Only this time it wasn’t just a road march. Every 2 km or so some of the company cadre had set up an “encounter” of some kind. Such as sniper fire, civilians requesting help, IED, a news media crew, etc. It kept the road march from being too boring. My pinky toes bore the brunt of the miles we marched and by the end of it all I was limping with huge open wounds on my toes for the next week or so. Nothing an Army Strong soldier can’t handle though!

After we returned home safe and sound from the FTX we had roughly a week of recovery and gear cleaning and returning that we had to do. We had to turn in all of our TA-50 gear (everything that isn’t our basic uniform issue like rucksacks, helmets, vests, etc) at the end of the week and I was one of only twelve soldiers in the entire company that got first time GOs for gear turn in. Meaning that we didn’t have to go back outside and clean or fix equipment. Because there were so few of us the Drill SGTs decided to give us a nice little pizza party for 9 of us. We ordered 6 large stuffed crust pizzas from Pizza Hut and enjoyed the feast in DS Pentz’ office watching Full Metal Jacket on his personal TV. Heh, heh, heh…after 9 weeks of doing things right it felt good to finally get rewarded for it.

Next week I’ll be writing a letter about graduation and family day and my transportation to AIT in South Carolina so stay tuned for more exciting developments!

Oh yeah, and for the last week after our FTX I pretty much ate dessert every meal so there isn’t any one piece of pie I can tell you about. Hey, it was the last week, so sue me!

—

Like I said before, it’s a great feeling to be writing letters in real time now. I look forward to telling you about my graduation and first week at AIT next time (it could be next week, it could be sooner depending on when I can get on the computer next).

Thanks for all your support!

PFC Christensen