Stargazing

If you all want to go stargazing, there is an amazing piece of information out there for you. Not only can you check the cycle of the moon to see when the new moon will be or when moonrise and moonset is, but you can find out the ending evening twilight time. (When evening twilight ends that means it’s truly night.) Here is the breakdown:

Civil Twilight—the sun is between exactly lined up on the horizon and six degrees below the horizon. You can still see well enough to do things, but a few of the brightest stars can be seen.

Nautical Twilight—the sun is between six and twelve degrees below the horizon. You can see more stars. It is a really good time to attack your enemies because their eyes aren’t fully adjusted to the change in light yet. Also a good time to be awake and on your guard (called ‘stand-to’) in case they attack you. (If you couldn’t tell, Army is the one who tipped me off to this whole thing).

Astronomical Twilight—the sun is between twelve and eighteen degrees below the horizon. It still isn’t really night yet (that is the next step). But the ending time of astronomical twilight is what you’re looking for.

Thursday is the new moon (which shouldn’t matter too much, because the moon has been setting in the early evening anyway). Go to this website to get your own month-long chart calculated based on your location.

Katie Billings

While I was at Fort Bragg in North Carolina, I visited a friend of mine who lives there. I arrived around ten on Friday night and found Katie and her mother, Didi, silking corn that had already been shucked. So we all started working on it. Then Deborah, Didi’s sister, came over and it started to get really crazy. We stayed up until close to two getting it all done.

On Saturday, Katie and I went up to her college town and she gave me a bit of a tour. One of the best parts was seeing all of the paintings she has done. And also listening to good music and talking as we drove.

the truth is that

hindsight is not twenty-twenty

The Best

As squad leader for the last few days, I was tasked with certain assignments for cleaning the barracks before we left to go home. It was one of the most exciting experiences of my life. Third and fourth squads were tasked to clean the latrine. The third squad leader was gone, so there I was, standing in the middle of the latrine, looking around to identify the next task. As people finished their particular task, they would ask me what to do next, and I would just say it. Then it was done. As problems arose, I told them how to fix it, then sent them out to do so.
Though a simple task, the exhilaration of controlling that much labor is unmatched. As a single individual, I had the strength, intelligence, and capacity of twenty-two men.

Cowboy Up

Smith and I had a sneaking suspicion that our evaluator was communicating with the opposition forces. Our primary piece of evidence was that he had a radio and kept talking to someone named 'OPFOR'. We decided that on our next lane one of us would be in charge, and we would go totally cowboy. Smith got control of the squad, and chose me to be the recorder, the guy who does the route planning and so forth.

Smith decided that he wanted to give the OPFOR misinformation, so he had me prep two routes to the objective. The first, we would radio up to Sergeant Ellis to make sure we had the right distance and direction to run head on into the OPFOR, making sure they knew we were taking the direct route. The second lead us around behind them so we could shoot them in the back. Smith briefed the squad that we would start out going kind of straight but sliding right as we went, stop at various points along the way, conduct a reconnaissance, the use of fire and maneuver, and other military things. Based on the fact that Smith briefed this and that Sergeant Ellis walked this lane every day and knew the route through the woods, it struck me as odd that when we started out going to the left-ish Sergeant Ellis apparently didn’t notice. Nor did he say anything about the fact that we never stopped, we just kept on trucking.

As we got closer, the OPFOR began to recon by fire (two notes here: first, that means they just shoot their guns and see if we give away our location by shooting back; second, they knew to recon by fire because we sounded like a herd of cattle trying to break through all of the brush and branches). At that point, Smith lead us across a road (apparently the OPFOR guys saw us crossing the road). We then circled around behind them, continuing to sound like a herd of cattle breaking brush. Though it seems impossible to believe, what with all the noise and the fact that the OPFOR saw us crossing the road, the OPFOR continued to rely on the intel they had received. That is, they were still looking in the direction Sergeant Ellis told them we would come when we walked up behind them. Smith looked at the situation, chucked the last one hundred twenty years of combat wisdom out the window, and called, “FULL FRONTAL ASSAULT!” We then all stood up and charged civil war style onto the objective shooting the thing up like Billy the Kid and the Regulators.

It was possibly one of the worst things I’ve ever seen. No one in the squad knew what was happening except Smith and I. And we didn’t even know. Smith was just making it up as he went along. We relied on Civil War tactics (remember how hundreds of thousands died?). It violated everything we’ve been taught to do as leaders, and is the sort of thing that gets people killed in real life.

Smith was given a rating of ‘Excellent’. Sergeant Ellis informed him that that was the kind of leadership we needed to see.

fire guard

Adam Lim (the West Pointer) was sleeping peacefully, when awakened by someone shaking his shoulders violently saying, “Da bewdings on fiyah!! Da bewdings on fiyah!!” It took him a second to realize that it was the 4’11” Chinese female, Tat. “Do you ha’ da next fiyah gahd shift?”
“Uh, no Tat, I don’t. Check the list on the wall.”
“Okay,” she said, and then, patting his cheek, “You go back sleep Lim.” Then her little figure scampered off into the darkness.

Welcome to My City

We lived in the barracks for a short time, then moved out to some tactical training bases (TTBs), which consist of a bunch of semi-permanent tents. As we moved around, we always slept in the same positions within the tent, so it felt like we were always at home.
I slept on the end of the tent that was more lively late at night (apparently the other guys thought joking around at midnight ought to cease since we knew we had to be up by four). So we’re all laughing and joking, and then things get quiet and we become aware that someone on the other end is snoring pretty loud.

“Who is that?” I asked.
A disembodied voice responded, “It’s Watkins, but I can’t get him to quit. He won’t wake up.”
“Well kick him until he does wake up.”

About thirty seconds more snoring went by, then it stopped.
“Okay, I finally got it,” the disembodied voice came back.
I lay back to go to sleep, but after a few more seconds of silence in the tent, something occurred to me.
“Hey, what did you do to get him to stop?”
“Oh, I just covered his face.”
“We’ll sleep good tonight, but we’ll wake up and Watkins’ll be dead. Awesome.” Everyone on our end of the tent started laughing and joking again, and it was a while before we got to sleep.

In connection with TTBs, I wrote this down as it happened.

15 July
My squad fell in with another today on the way back to the FOB (TTB West). Their conversation went something like this:

One: Welcome to my city.
Unison: TTB West!
One: Please check all weapons at the door. They will be available for pick up on exiting my city.
Unison: TTB West!
Two: Please do not use the sinks or piss in the showers.
Three: No shaving in the sinks—that’d give you warm water.
Four: You can’t shave in the sinks? Since when?
Two: Read the sign on the door. It says so right on there. And you can’t piss in the showers.
Officer walks up
Officer: Any ya’ll know a Patrick O’Brien?
Three: I think he’s seventh regiment. They go home today.
One: Leaving my city.
Unison: TTB West!
Two: As always, we hope you enjoyed your stay in my city.
Unison: TTB West!
Sergeant: MINUTEMEN!!!
Unison: SIXTY SECONDS!!!
Two: So what platoon are ya’ll?
Me: Second.
Two: Second? Oooh. So ya’ll’re the singers.
Smith: You gotta do something to keep yourself entertained.
Four: We got charm in third squad.
Third: We make jokes in third squad, but we ain’t no singers.
Me: We sang a good one on the way out here.

We then gave a stunning rendition of “You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling,” complete with back up singers, snapping, and parts for the main singers, all greeted by thunderous applause.

I love Army.