Fun with Guns

The following is an email from my sister-in-law Jacqui, the Navy doctor who is currently attending combat training at Fort Stewart in preparation for her Afghanistan deployment:

This has been an especially long week and every day involves body armor (IBA) and guns. I have had about as much fun as I can stand! However, the Navy/Army always has a new twist to add and tomorrow it is off for more computer simulator training (on identifying who to shoot and not to shoot) and then land nav. I just hope someone brings a GPS to the course on Saturday.

Today was actually pretty cool except for the 3am wakeup and the 4am range time to shoot the m9 in the dark. We then went to another range to shoot 'big guns.' The biggest is a 50 cal, and the others were a 500 and 700 something. Please see [my son] or [my husband] or other military type to give you better pecifics. I just can't retain stuff like that. We had tanks and dummies to aim at and I hit most everything so that was good. We then did a "tactical" course with the M16 which involves being pulled out of a humvee and shooting at multiple targets from standing, kneeling and prone. I learned that 'double tap' means to shoot it twice quickly, not run faster. This was followed by an exercise in walking and identifying targets with people to our left and right with live rounds in our rifles. The goal being to bring the rifles to bear on the target without shooting the person next to you. Mission accomplished. Of course, after wearing the IBA for about two hours in the sun at that point, actually hitting the target was the least of my concerns.

We had a Navy Ball here last Saturday which was a blast. It was held in the Marriott and really was well done. The alcohol ban was lifted for the night and that was a plus. One more week or this fun and then off to Kuwait for desert specific training. Love to everyone, Jacqui.

For me, I wouldn't have lasted 30 minutes in the South Carolina heat in all that gear. When it comes to humidity, I'm a wimp.

I am encouraging Jacqui to start her own blog so that we can follow her in her mission. She seems pretty adept at picking up computer skills, so there's hope that she'll get it going soon.