My FTX is coming up this weekend. It's gonna be a blast! Quite literally, when we first get there we get to spend time on an M4 range and a machine gun range
. We also get to use blanks for the STX lanes which should add a sense of realism to the situations. There's a rumor going around that us contracted cadets are gonna be able to take a ride in a Blackhawk too!! I just have to hope my feet hold up
I'm really excited for it!
Sounds like a great weekend in the woods.
Just to give you a taste of what can be available to you in the future if you work hard and get just a little lucky, this was my son's experience at CTLT this past summer.
Since he had gone to Airborne School and was #1 on the battalion OML he was given a CTLT with the 82nd Airborne Infantry at Ft. Bragg. The day after he arrived they drove him out to meet up with a Company that was training for deployment Oct. 1st.
The first day he was there they set up a defense perimeter all day and then defended the camp at night...all practice. He did well that day and a Capt came up to him and told him that a Platoon was without a PL because he had just left for Ranger School, he told him "The platoon is yours for the rest of the week" needless to say he was a bit nervous.
The next day they trained clearing houses and buildings, after a dry run they told them to go get loaded up, he wasn't sure exactly what that meant at first until the handed him multipl magazines filled with live ammo, then it clicked. The next 2 training sessions was with live ammo, they entered the houses and buildings and had targets set up all over and they had to hit the right ones, in his words...."Bullets were flying everywhere" All this while they were sending M40's over their heads blowing things up before they entered. He thought that was the best until later when they said they were going to do it all over again at night with night vision, that quickly beacame the best. They did this for 3 days.
A few days after they ended the exercises he joined the other LT's for a Walk and Shoot, basically the spent the day calling in Apache and F-18 fire, then they called in Artillery fire well into the night, that was until some stupid ^&$@#* loaded a shell incorrectly and dropped it 70 meters from where they were. If it had not fallen into a culvert that just happened to be there he probably would not be coming home. The 105mm has a kill radius of about 80 meters, they were 70 meters from the impact. An investigation was launched right away, he was told when he left that there were at least 3 enlisted and 2 officers that had just become unemployed civilians.
All in all it was a very exciting 3 weeks, the one thing that came out of it was he decided to branch Aviation, go figure. Oh and one other thing, always make sure you load the shells correctly, the Army doesn't look kindly on blowing up it's own.
ROTC has a lot of opportunities, just do well and you can take advantage of some great things, just don't get blown up...HaHa.
