O.K. what do you really do during Blue Thunder?

Here is a post I never finished from Blue Thunder

We sleep... a lot! Eat 3 times a day (MRE's & grits), goof off, and have a good time!

Playing football

or Phase Ten...

Tent city (that A/C just barely makes it livable in there)

We learn to sleep anywhere.

Here is the pavilion. Under here we have meetings, get lectured, and eat breakfast and dinner.

At lunchtime we eat MRE's.

Grits kind of look like the food from the 'Matrix

I told you we sleep anywhere!

After hours of lecturing and a nice hot MRE, it is time to catch some shut eye.Ahh, good memories
10 minute break- nap time!

Inside the tent

I've been shot!

Self Aid Buddy Care (SABC): I wont go into too much detail on this one, but the bottom line is that SABC saves lives during combat situations. Since this has been executed there has been over a 90% jump in lives saved. The troops that are treated with SABC make it to a hospital, and once there, their chances of survival are almost guaranteed. On this day we watched hours of powerpoint briefings on life saving skills. Once the video was finished we got to practice those skills. After we honed our skills our instructor had a special drill for us to complete. A few of the lucky ones (included yours truly), got to wear some pretty realistic wounds and act as if we had been injured. Injuries included: head wounds, leg, arm, fractures, chest wound, and others.

http://www.af.mil/news/story.asp?id=123046292

Here is me seriously having a bad day.
Ouch! How do you treat that!
During this exercise you have a 3 person team. 2 medics accompanied by 1 security force (SF). There were 3 wounded individuals that each team had 15 minutes to treat. The job of the SF is to protect the medics & wounded from natives and terrorists. It kind of sucks for the SF because they have a 360 perimeter to watch over. Meanwhile the medics have a few minutes to stop the bleeding, patch em up, and haul 'em back to a hospital/safety, with whatever supplies they have left. By the 3rd wounded, you really have to be creative in treating them because you are short on supplies.

See the SF guarding against an unwanted while the medics carry a wounded to a helicopter. The wounded guy is the biggest guy in our flight, 6'4!

Keep up the good work only 1 left to go!One unknown fact is that because of the military's huge success in saving the lives of our wounded, the total for our wounded soldiers has sky rocketed. Today our wounded count is over 30,000. 'Wounded' doesn't mean a flesh wound, it usually means missing a limb, permanently injured, or head wound. These brave warriors need our help and so do their wives and children.

http://www.woundedwarriorproject.org/

http://www.nmcrs.org/

http://www.aerhq.org/

http://www.afas.org/

Jack 'Em Up!

Defense Force Protection: We spent this day with the Security Forces (the people you see when you want to get on base). We learned procedures for when unknown people approach an entrance. If they don't know the password, they are about to have a really bad day.

STORY: The female Tech Sergeant instructing

us told a story about a time a well endowed female Major wanted to come on base. They had to search her. Our Tech Sergeant quickly checked her for concealed weapons & avoided her chest area because it made her uncomfortable. When she finished checking she turned her back to the Major. The Major pulled out a pair of sharp scissors from her chest and held them to the Sergeant's throat. "You just cost the lives of your entire team." Our sergeant learned a very important lesson that day. It doesn't matter why or how inconvenient it is for the person getting searched, "they shouldn't have been there, and now they are going to have a really bad day."

The Security Forces personnel are just one group of the military that put their lives on the line every day.

Our Sergeant liked to say "now you get to jack 'em up!" (Security Forces people are crazy like that- don't mess with them). Once a person fails the screening process we forcefully tell them to get down on the ground. Your buddy points the gun at the person, while you advance to bind him.

Once they are bound you look for concealed weapons, etc... You do this by taking a small piece of their clothes, grab it, and twist. You do this over the whole body front & back. There is even a clever way to check the pockets without "violating" them.

Overall this was a fun day, later we searched vehicles for weapons/bombs, and set up a defensive position using sandbags. The sandbags aren't as much protection as they look, but it's better than nothing.

Guns + Sand = A Big Mess!

Small Unit Tactics: This is why you should join the military, you get to play in the sand! Why do we "low crawl" you ask. The reason is if you are being fired upon, you still need to advance on the enemy. All of the wires and bars you see represent bullets flying over you. If you touch a wire than you are crawling too high and got hit by a bullet.

This image shows you just how low those wires really are. While you are doing this, you want to make sure your muzzle doesn't touch the sand- that's bad.

Once we were done practicing tactics and crawling around on the ground, we had the privilege of cleaning our M4's. You would be surprised how easy it is to take apart a rifle. However, all that sand you saw up above is now in our rifles! Which means we have to clean it all out- attention to detail, can't leave any specks.

There is no exact science once you have broken down the rifle. You just use cloth, gauze, or snakes to clean the rifle. A couple of the M4's were pretty bad and took about an hour to clean. I was lucky, mine barely had any sand! Once your done you put her back together, slap a little bit of oil on and lube up the M4, then your done!

Post Tear Gas

Chemical/MOPP procedures: I am pretty happy with myself because I stayed in for 3 breaths, a lot of people leave after 1 good one. Usually what kicks you out of the "chamber" is the choking. It doesn't feel so good, this is Kevin recovering from the gas in his lungs. Mmmm, good stuff! I did the same thing.

Once you leave the gas you just want to close your eyes, and you really can't see for about 5 minutes, I looked the same as John.

Reaction of different people after the gas

Ever wondered what it would be like to be tear gassed. Well it may not be as bad as you were hoping for. Here is the reaction of 5 of our flight members that went through it a second time, no masks, and determined to show how manly they were, by staying in as long as possible.

Before and During Being Gassed

Chemical/MOPP procedures: On this day we reviewed the dangers of chemical weapons, what they do, how long we have to react, and how the military responds to this threat. It is another death by powerpoint, in class we learn "MOPP" procedures. MOPP is just an acronym for us putting on a chemical suit. When the a chemical attack occurs, you have 9 seconds to (don) put your mask on.

PROCEDURE: "Gas! Gas! Gas!" Take cover, close your eyes, take out your mask from a side pouch, fit it on your face, pull the straps over your head, check to make sure the you have a tight seal, and blow hard to make sure you breath. It can get a little more involved but that is the jest of it. That is called Donning the mask.

Here is a picture of John with his mask donned, he is good to go.

In a addition to the masks are the chemical suites, called MOPP gear. Obviously these take more than 9 seconds, so in certain conditions you are already wearing this. That way when the alert sounds all you have to is don your mask. These suits add about 10 degrees heat to our ABUs (uniform). Now imagine wearing this in a desert where it is 120 degrees!

Here are 2 of my flight-mates ready to be gassed

Here is me with my mask donned ready to enter the "chamber"

After the briefing they drove us out to a little shack in the middle of nowhere. Flight by flight we took our turn experiencing the effects of gas with our masks on. Your skin begins to get hot, and you feel a slight burning sensation. Then we take off our masks and get the full effect. Your eyes immediately start to burn and you squint. If you take shallow breaths then you can withstand the gas much longer. But to get the full effect we tried to inhale one large breath. The bold ones stayed in for about 7-10 seconds. Here is what happens when you inhale the gas. You start to choke, longer exposure leads to coughing and possibly gaging.

Deploying

In addition to the duffle bag you are already carrying, you need to be issued a helmet, flack vest, M4 rifle, and another duffle bag. The vest adds another ten pounds alone. It was a black flag day, which means hotter than crap- your only allowed to do limited exercises. The sun was beating down on us and I was severely dehydrated. Camp was a little over half a mile away, with a small hill and the end. Yep, we walked all the way there.

We will do anything to fine shade on this day
Here are some of my flight-mates, ready to deploy!

And here I am severely depleted of liquids & trying to stay alive