OST

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The setting of the rifle targets

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Ze first safety brief

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Starting the o-course walkthrough

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First firing point

tag

One of the culprits for the term “f*%# ravines”


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6’ wall and very tired finisher

Eta: these are just the first few from my phone, i’ll send out the ones from my camera in a few days

Damn my asthma and broncitus.  So close but so far from going.  Looked like a blast.

Alas, next time.

Next time!!
(one person can attest that its better to come healthy...it was brutal enough)

Lol.  Heck, I wasn't even going to compete but volunteer for setup and safety/relay.  Still wished I could have gone.

Tag for later. IL squad settling in at a Motel 6 in Fargo.

Thanks Jen, can't wait to see more!

From the night land nav from Patchouli.

My Hooch



THE truck to borrow if you have important tasks to complete. Thank God for Illinois roofers.



Beautiful views.



Ben & Jens cabin, AKA T.O.C.



SWedd523's hammock hooch



Parking by the cabin.

This is a placeholder for more information, but it's also to inform you that if you have a Jetboil in your kit, you need to bring a lighter, sparker, or book of matches with you.

Why?

Because when you get posted to RO duty out on a ridgeline in 40 degree weather with a stiff wind, you'll try to make up a cup of coffee or some food, and the fucking piezoelectric will break.  And then you'll remember that you took your emergency fire starter out of your daypack/mainpack lid, and it's like two hours away.

Morakniv firestarter.

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Despite my cool new call sign, I don't think it's actually going to scar-
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One more @Ben
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I have quite a few more but won't post without express consent from anyone in them, so those will probably just go direct to Ben and/or Jen.

Feel free for any of me. IDGAF.

Second pic is my new desktop background.

I don't have many photos, but here are a couple from the morning of the 29th. The snow had already been melting through the night due to being above freezing, and when compared to the later photos is a pretty wild difference.

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One for now, posting from the Menard's parking lot in Rapid City.  Three more trout put on ice today.

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Dammit i should've gone.

After Action Report

This event was the coolest thing I've done in a long time.  Many thanks to the hosts and all the staff who made it happen.  I'm proud to have been a part of it.  Special thanks to Patchouli for giving me his extra map since I left mine 1000 miles away like a damn boot Private

RUCK
The ruck was a lot tougher than a 12 mile ruck in pancake flat Illinois.  The distance is good I think.  More miles could be added but aiming to complete the 12 miles faster has equal value.
Hiking on flat terrain doesn't really translate all that well to hiking up hills.  The difficulty increases significantly.  

LAND NAV
The land nav exercise was very cool and very challenging, mainly because most of the exercise took place after dark.  I think the difficulty level was good and should be sustained.   I do think the exercise should start sooner in the day so that competitors without night vision have a better chance of finding a few of their points before dark.  Ideally everyone would just stop being poor and get NODs, though.  That is the way.
The $20 Amazon IR handheld light I was using worked great for navigating the woods and spotting the 2-liter soda bottles that were used for targets.  I didn’t have a helmet mounted IR light but I think that would have helped, too.  
I had a comm failure that caused some concern at the TOC and made me feel like a dork.  I had forgotten to change out the battery in my radio and it was getting low.  I wanted to save the battery in case of emergency so I turned the radio off.  I planned to check in every so often but later in the night I got so focused on the land nav that I never thought to check in.  Turns out that I was one of the last guys still out and the TOC was getting worried since they couldn’t get me on the radio (it didn’t help that I was last seen heading for a big cliff).  For an individual exercise like this a periodic check in plan could help avoid this problem.  I should have thought to check in on the radio but I was really only paying attention to the drop dead time that I had to be back to the TOC.

OBSTACLE COURSE/SHOOTING
The obstacle course was great.  It was a lot more difficult than it looked when we walked it.  Challenge level should be sustained.  It really demonstrated how much your shooting suffers when you’re gassed out with a pounding pulse.  The 3000+’ elevation made itself known, too.   I need to work on cardio.
Shooting stages were good.  Rifle stages were very challenging.  No one cleared the first stage.  You'd have to be one hell of a shooter to do so.  The pistol stage could be more difficult, I think.  Maybe a couple more targets, or one target set much farther away.  A 100 yard, 2/3 IPSC pistol target would be cool.
The course could be marked better.  Sometimes it was difficult to tell where you were supposed to be going and some competitors got lost at times (myself included).  Maybe this is by design, though.  In that case, rock on.

Overall takeaway is that the APC plan is spot on.  All of the APC training I’ve been doing since early spring this year really paid off.  All of the tweaking and tuning of equipment, and lessons learned, that’s happened throughout the year during three figures worth of hiking miles, plus the WV August Rush exercise, paid off as well.  My gear performed flawlessly.  Nothing fell off, or out of, anything.  All of my gear incorporated well and worked together.  If I would have attempted this event in the spring it would have been a flaming dumpster fire of every type of failure.  
This event was way cool.  I got to know a bunch of cool guys and put faces to a lot of screen names.  Networking, camaraderie, learning, suffering, fun.  

A side by side or a couple of ATVs would sure make setup and teardown quicker and easier.  Scarface and I put in well over 50 miles of hiking around during the 3.5 days we were there, most of it with a load of some sort on our backs.  But I guess that's good training, too.

Outstanding AAR and great shooting.

Going to try not to make this whole thing a "+1" to Eli's AAR but he did a great job and much of my experience mirrors his.

The ruck- Upon hearing it would be 12 miles with only 35 pounds I was waaaay overconfident. I had been training in IL with considerably more weight and assumed the lighter weight would compensate for the ~3000' of elevation and the hills we had to climb. I was wrong. For my age and level of fitness the distance was right at the edge of what was physically possible at the pace required. My hamstrings were cramping so bad at the end that it took me a solid 20 minutes to go the last 100-150 yards. Getting up and continuing up that final hill was one of the most physically and mentally difficult things I've done in recent memory and when I stumbled to the finish I was DONE. Agree with Eli that the distance was good and focus should be on pace going forward, but that's because I'm old and weak and probably would have failed at a 16 mile ruck in those conditions.

Land nav- I ate up a large chunk of the daylight we had with a couple of very stupid errors. I managed to get close to my first objective before dark but made the call to pack it in when I realized it was down in a ravine that I was unwilling to negotiate in the "dark". In retrospect (and as was pointed out to me later) I probably could have done it if I had taken my time and moved carefully. We had a full moon to work with and looking back I think the "dark" was just a convenient excuse for me to quit. I was still beat from the ruck and mentally failed to push through and carry on. Will work on my land nav skills so I'm only fighting the conditions next time, not the conditions + my own incompetence. And I should probably buy NV. No complaints about the setup other than I think a little more daylight at the start would have kept some guys in it longer. If I had a point or two under my belt before dark I might have been more inclined to carry on, dark or not. Oh, and a 50k:1 map was a mistake. I ended up relying heavily on terrain association and that was very difficult with the resolution offered by the smaller scale.

O course- Just about perfect as far as distance and layout. Definitely could have been marked better and the rifle targets were just about impossible to see at the second rifle position due to the color. Red paint would have been much better. Not that it would have mattered for me because I failed to install the zero stop shims on my scope and did not realize that fact until after my run. I was 12 MOA low on everything I shot at. My windage adjustment also got tweaked at some point before the second rifle position, not that it mattered with my elevation being so far off. Huge failure on my part there and it cost me some serious time/points. LPVO with capped turrets FTW next time. Oh, and make the wall taller

General observations- I had no issue assisting with setup but it certainly could have been accomplished more efficiently. I understand the circumstances that forced a lot of last minute prep, but a call out to inbound participants for some absent materials would have saved a lot of running around finding/painting targets we had just hiked out and set the day before. With a little communication we could have helped get back on schedule before even arriving. That said, the setup turned out to be a significant portion of the event and pushed me that much closer to a physical breaking point, which is what I expected going in.

I'd also like to see more comms related activities, or at least have the capabilities some arrived with explored a little, but that's probably just the ham in me talking. Showing up with 3-4 radios, APRS TX/RX up and running and zones set up and ready to be programmed for the event only to end up on MURS for the entirety was a bit disappointing.

All that said, awesome event and thanks to all that helped make it happen, especially Ben & Jen for making all of us feel like family for our stay on their little slice of heaven.


edited to add- whoever was leaning on their PTT for the majority of the ruck, kick yourself in the nuts.

We could have definitely used your help on staff - we had several staff have to bail at the last minute and that hurt us on set-up and manning especially for the O-course (for which I was zero assistance due to my convenient "I have a baby" excuse ).
But no worries, next time!!! You and the fam are always welcome.

For those of you wondering how awesome the roads were, she was pristine clean when we started
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Here’s my AAR.

RUCK

Straightforward. I didn’t anticipate running portions of it, and I should have. Will wear lighter boots more suited for running next time, as well as building an egg to keep weight closer to my body.

LAND NAV

I was unprepared. Had not done land nav requiring that level of precision before, and a commercial Suunto compass was not adequate. Will definitely be integrating land nav exercises into training.

O-COURSE

Straightforward. Magnified optics are not optional, I think an ACOG with honeycomb and RMR would have been ideal, due to low sun messing with target ID. Need to start doing more run-and-gun style matches.

SUMMARY

Not a beginner event. Met awesome people. Very focused, did not have the partying element of Cola Warrior.

I’ll be back.

Found this in my gear, it is not mine.

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@TNC is that your missing 20rounder?

APC WFC2020 AAR, Steve L (patchouli):

Pre-event prep:
-Physical Fitness:
-Having "reacquainted" myself with fitness in the last 2 years by doing slow maffetone method running according to low heart rate as well as weightlifting and body weight exercises like pullups, pushups, and situps, I was in fairly ok shape for a 44 year old when I signed up for the APC WFC.

-Asked a buddy to do it with me but he never really got going on hikes or anything so asked John Stoner (colawarrior demigod) if he wanted to partner up. He sent me info on a program for guys looking to prep for SF selection called THOR3. I started that 14 week program the day I talked to stoner.

-THOR3: At first I thought it was pretty easy, but the weights exercises were different than I had done before in my life with a lot of unilateral work like single leg squats and such. I liked the unfamiliarity even though it felt uncomfortable.

The program got pretty difficult in the middle. I remember being very sore and beat up and fatigued. Mostly with 800 meter interval sprints and such, which was hard on my feet and legs and even heart.

But I would get used to the program and learn to like it, and then it would switch gears into something else. (Which I guess is a feature and not a bug). (Keep the body guessing and forcing adaptation).

Followed the program almost perfectly, but had to substitute a few exercises due to equipment owned/available. There were a couple days I had to throw in a rest day due to fatigue or work.

Having a program kept me in line and honest. Couldnt just wing it. Also seeing stoner's messages with garmin watch exercise/ruck/run data helped to make sure I kept putting in effort even when i didnt want to. Didnt want to let him down due to poor preparation.

Finished thor3 a little too early. Was peaking at the end of that program but there was still a month or so left till event.

Lack of a program, and heavy wildfire smoke in September for weeks let my fitness slip a bit.

For last few weeks of prep, just tried to do a lot of pullups and light/minor weights /some slower jogs and hill repeat runs to keep legs and cardio okay.

Should have programmed something more scheduled for the last month. But overall fitness was not a huge issue at the event.

Food/diet during prep:
Mostly strict keto during whole trainup, but began to have carb refeed days about every 10 to 14 days at the end when I felt I needed them. Maintained about 182lbs and started to see some ab definition.(2 years prior was at 230lbs and fat and sedentary).

Gear prep:
-Buying tons of stuff throughout the months. Testing/trying/ thinking/packing/repacking. Basement a mess with exploded hunting packs/shooting equipment. Bought stuff never used like tripods and adapters, weird backpack pouches that sort of worked okay but were clumsy and not great. Holsters and pouches that might work with ruck or not. Not knowing how it would all interface together.

Wanted a chest rig, but for months I could not find anything in stock from 3 or 4 mfgrs. Didnt really know how i was going to carry mags at event. Thought might just carry them in ruck. But also threw an empty army waist pack(fanny pack) in my ruck in case we needed to make an impromptu "go bag " or "recon pouch". (Used this for land nav slung across shoulder full of mags and water)(painful in traps /shoulder after hours of land nav).

Afterthought: should have just spent money on a premium ruck and gear. My tendency is to cheap out and try to make stuff work.


Travel to event:
Partner had to pull out of event. So I left early, worried about winter roads. Got chains. Didnt need to use them. Traveled to Bozeman then stayed in motel for the night for a good shower and sleep. I liked that.

Tried to eat good food along the way. Lots of carbs instead of keto. But also superfood greens/protein mix and apples and granola and oats. Tried not to eat any fast food or gas station food.

Stopped in billings to shoot at long range to see if my dope was still good. White steel against full white snow. Found I was a touch low at 600 yards, so I figured it out on my reticle and was hitting easily and seeing the impacts on steel perfectly through the recoil cycle.

Felt supreme confidence about shooting and figured I would dominate that portion due to my practice. (Hubris and training gap realized later).


Arrival/ Camp Setup:

Arrived in Melstone and realized, my satellite photo recon of the site did not really show me the real route into the camp. Had no comms due to no cell service, so scrambled back to previous town to see if I could find other apc parties via cell phone. Luckily I connected with TNC and Elcope and they were able to ground guide me into camp. Got a little stuck in the mud spinning tires at the parking site but otherwise no problems with Subaru.


Only brought bivy sac and sleeping bag. Last minute bought zero degree bag because I was worried about cold. Cheap bag. Figured I could endure any amount of suffering for a short period of time. Ended up sleeping in Subaru instead. Was okay. Sleeping bag zipper burst open and left my exposed side a little chilly at night. Fixed it the next day but it split again later. Just wore more clothes to bed and a ski mask and wool socks over my hands. Some hand warmer packets near my feet and in pockets of pants helped too.

Others reported the military sleep system bags were awesome and robust. Again... lesson for me is not to cheap out. (How I have not learned this after 40plus years .....I guess I am a slow learner).


Ben and Jen were super nice. Ben tried to explain he is really not that nice but they were great to us. They even allowed and encouraged us to go inside their cabin ,which was not expected by me, let alone cooking for us and just general hospitality.

Setup for Events:
I was happy to help do whatever setup help was necessary. Just tried to keep an open mind. Though it was fatiguing and my inner brain still tried to whine to me about elevated heart rate and leg and arm muscle burn as we carried targets and hiked across the ravines and hills. I looked at my heart rate data and could see the elevation was getting to me, raising my active heart rate and resting rate substantially. I wondered if this would hurt my performance but then just adopted the attitude of "embrace the suck".

WFC Events:

Ruck: When it was announced there was reduced mileage to 12 miles, I was of course relieved, but also a weird sense of being deprived of the 16 mile gut check. I have never done that much and am always looking for tests of will power. But ultimately was more relieved than let down.

Wore Salomon mid hi goretex boots. Had hiked with these on and off during prep. These were an ok option, but I was hoping to use the lightweight salomon speedcross 5s. I just didnt know if there would be tons of water and mud. There wasnt and the speed crosses would have been fine. (Used them during land nav later).

Started ruck with newly assigned partner. We didnt really know each other's pace/etc. At first I planned to just stay together for good teamwork. But then the more i thought about it, and how the scores worked, and how I wanted to really push myself to test my preparation, I decided to break off on my own at the half way point. My partner said as long as I felt I could catch someone and pass them it would be a good strategy. So I did and it worked.

The first 6 miles were a little "reserved" on pace but the 2nd 6 miles I pushed a little harder. Kept good mental strength mantra about catching guys and trying to put them behind me and not look back. Repeating thoughts: "Just keep going. You got this. You trained since March. Make them doubt themselves. Pick up the pace. Run this downhill. Don't let up. Show no suffering. Show no weakness."

At mile 10 or so, some cramping /twitching in calves and quads. Uh oh. Never had that before. Rifle sling came undone. Tied it in a knot and kept going. Only carried 16oz water bottle to "game" the weight. (Pack was 36lbs). Refilled water at mile 6. Ran out of water at mile 10.5 around the time of the cramping. Uh oh. "Keep going. You can suffer for a mile and a half."

Last mile and a half cramps got worse. Calves tightened into balls when jogging. Finished running into camp though. Felt good. Not horribly fatigued. Just thirsty and cramped legs. Maybe could have gone faster? Maybe not. Guys I passed seemed to take a while to come in. I must have put some distance between us. I had imagined they were right behind me. Chasing me.

No issues with feet. Minor hotspot on left ball of foot. (Happens every hike). Wicking thin toe socks as liners. Thicker smart wool socks. (Tested all summer on hikes). Had thought about pretaping hotspot, but didnt want to risk something "new".

32 oz water was almost enough.
Was pretty hot during the ruck. Unbuttoned shirt down to belly button. No thermal underwear layer. Just thin pants, thin breathable wicking fishing shirt. No hat since I run hot and hats trap in heat. No glasses as I feel claustrophobic in them.

Peed once during ruck. Tried to drink a ton of water and electrolytes the days prior to force hydration. No alcohol till after all events. Ate a couple little granola bars along the ruck. Poor choice. Dry mouth. Gels would have been nice.

No chaffing from backpack or holster/belt. This rubbing and chafing had happened on prior train up rucks... To the point I had open sores on hips and back for 10 days. Luckily I had toughened up in the trainup.

Tons of rest time after ruck. Take off shoes. Air out feet and lay down and elevate feet inside Subaru. Used battery-powered percussion massage gun on tight legs. Rehydrated.


Land Navigation:
A long time ago I did many land nav courses and always found all points. Though i am not good with innate sense of direction, I always prided myself with being able to use a map and protractor and compass and use a combination of dead- reckoning and terrain association. I also have done orientateering courses and did one with a local group before the Corona closed them all. It was a night event and I got all the points. Confidence was fairly high.

(Put all my mags and a bottle of water into the fanny pack and slung it on shoulder on same shoulder as rifle. Very sore after land nav. Too much weight on one shoulder. Oh well. Forgot to drink water. Was very dehydrated after land nav. Almost passed out in hot cabin. Felt dizzy. Soaken wet with sweat. )

Received my points and plotted them with protractor. Had my laminated map printed at office depot at 1:25000 scale and checked protractor to see if it was on. It was. Checked ink with red light at home to see if it was red light readable as mil maps are. It was. (Did not check ir). In fact, did not have night vision capability or training until a couple weeks before event. Wasnt even going to bring the sionics NV camera/helmret/ir illuminator but did.

After plotted my points, saw all the points confined to small area on map. Double checked the plotting and came up with route from point to point with pace count and azimuths. Then cut the map off with knife to make more handy. I Liked this smaller map.

Didnt like the routes that I had planned much - as I had seen ravines in my path, but figured, "meh, I could crash through the ravines with brute force and make it work."

During my travel to first point I thought about that and abandoned my planned route and walked around the ravines and tried to keep track of where I was via terrain association instead.

Found first point after a little bit of circling around end of my travel path. Thought "okay...not too bad." Though I also thought "finding a frigging bottle that you cant see till you are literally 1 meter away Is not ideal... and it's getting dark."

Changed my route to go for a point atop the steep mountain. It was darkening now. Felt a weird sense of hair on back of neck as I climbed past sandstone caves and recesses to make my way to top of ridge. Felt like I was being watched by a cougar. Loaded my pistol and kept hand on grip and visualized being mauled by cougar and shooting it. Weird.

Got to the top of mountain and to the spur I thought was my point . It was against a steep cliff and I was positive I was in right spot due to terrain association. They said bottles wouldn't be hidden and warned of dangerous steep sand stone cliffs that could crumble. So i thought the bottle would surely be visible from the non-cliff side. I spent over an hour and a half going back and forth along the cliff side. Stopping to look at map and re-check. Trying to use night vision (Sionics and ir light) for the first time ever. Very slow and tedious. Getting frustrated and panicked at times. But also knowing I am in right spot but cant see a damn bottle in the dark woods. Thinking I probably walked over it.

Along the hunt I saw 2 other competitors and talked with them a bit. Tried to help another guy with his nearby point. He never found it. Even though he was right by it.

I went to the edge of the cliff. One step away from death to take a picture and movie with my night vision camera. And I saw the bottle hidden behind a rock between the cliff edge. Fuck that. You need one meter accuracy for these points at night. Fuck that. Assuming a grid point is perfectly plotted, you only have 10Meter resolution. I was pissed.

I made my way back to cabin and tried to replan/reshoot my way back to the remaining points. I found the ravine I was supposed to find my point in but crashed around the woods looking for the bottle and found nothing. Radio checks were warning of diminishing time left and one competitor couldnt be found so we were trying to locate /relay messages to him. I stopped to provide his last known spot I had seen him along the cliff earlier.

20min left.
I made my way back to the cabin. Dehydrated because I had forgotten to drink water. Tired. Pissed. Embarrassed. Disgusted at myself for having failed my first land nav ever. I had always been able to find points before.

Didn't feel as bad when I heard pretty much every competitor complain about the course. But even with the complaints, some of the guys did find their points, so it was possible. Still a humiliating defeat. Must get better.

Sionics battery pack cable got snagged by branch and pulled out and battery died for an hour or so while it recharged after plugging it back in. IR light was not compatible with ink contour lines. Red light worked. I was loose with red light discipline (cheated) but was too mad to care. Turns out we had been given clearance to use the red light, though I didnt know because I had turned off radio to save battery for emergency transmission. Only got a replacement radio from Cabin when I went back to re start route.

Didnt sleep much that night. Replaying event in mind.

Final day Combat Endurance Course:

Shooting portion/ stage 1:
Didn't have good way to hold a ton of mags. No chest rig or small pack. Just belt with a couple mag pouches and stuffed all the rest of mags in pockets. Worked pretty well though. Decided to clip on a pillow bag used in PRS matches so I could use it for rest. Thought that it would give me huge advantage. It did not. (More later).

We were told no bipod. I been practicing with bipod and rear bag on stock a ton for last 6 months. Rock steady and stable. Seeing my own bullet trace in migh magnification scope. Seeing my own target impact splash through recoil cycle. I tend to think I'm really good at shooting. I have pictures of groups that are .6 inches. (From bench)

Well...guess what dumbass? A) you're not that good. B) you painted yourself into a corner using bipod and rear bag. C) you didnt practice field positions much. D) you didnt practice getting into position quickly against a clock.

Upon the start of first stage I put the puffy bag in front and used it as front handguard rest. It sank down. I couldnt get my head low enough to see properly in scope. Eye relief was screwed up. By the time I'd sort of fix it, I was straining and flexing and not relaxed. No natural point of aim. I'd lose the target and start over. Shit. Panic. Shitty fundamentals. Cranking off rounds. Thinking " Holy shit this is embarrassing. These are easy targets. I am better than this. They are all laughing at you. "

Time ended and I remember telling myself "Well that sucked. But you ain't done. Forget it and move on."

Took the road back to cabin. I remember it had been an easy walk and jog even in the night prior during land nav. One of the GB guys had even been walking it the night before with me and said "it's just downhill and smooth enough it makes you want to jog it." So that's the path I took back to cabin instead of cross country ravine climbing.

Controlled my breath and gate. Found a good rifle/sling position and jogged. Felt good. Surprisingly good.

Wire obstacle. I had blue painter taped my pistol red dot so it wouldn't get muddy. Worked well. I planned to shimmy on back so I could see and move wire around me. But at last minute I thought I could low crawl on belly. About half way I got snagged up on something. Wasnt sure if it was my clothes or what. Got slightly panicked. Found out it was my pistol. Turned around onto my back and got even more tangled. But was able to calm myself and freed myself and back shimmied the rest of way. Cleared the wire and removed the painters tape from pistol sight and stowed it in pocket.

One rope bridge. Done these before a long time ago. But shorter. Surprisingly it wasnt that hard. Gun fell off of chest about half way, but just calmly retrieved it via sling and tucked it up on chest again. Pulled and pulled until my back and feet were touching ground and until I made it to the specified trees. Fumbled with Unclipping carabiner for quite some time.

Caught up to previous competitor at next firing point. Had to wait while he finished shooting and then retrieve mags.

Could not see these targets well at all. One of them, I couldn't even find at all. And I had helped place them there! Lighting and color was bad. Oh well. Hit as many as I could.
Remember feeling very unstable from positions and having poor fundamentals and rushed shots. Not good. Need more practice from field positions.

Should have used the pillow I had brought along my clipped to my belt for support but forgot.

Went to next pistol range. Not very hard, but could have done a little better (faster). Had a stovepipe that was easily cleared. Heart rate high.

Went to ravine rope descent and climb. I like that. Was fun. Rope got a little tangled in rifle but no problem.

Went to final wall. Saw the prior competitor going the wrong way in front of my. Caught up to him when he had to correct path. Let him go first on the wall though. He fell off the wall during a leg cramp. I asked if he was okay and he told me to go ahead. So I did and ran to the finish. Sort of felt like a dick for not helping him.

Didnt feel that smoked after the course from what I recall. I know during a couple of the movements I was huffing and puffing and even walked some. But I remember thinking I could easily do it again if required. And even sort of wanted to do it over.


Comms: New ham tech. 100% on test. Zero knowledge of actual radio use or procedure. Got tyt udm380 like a few days before event. Tried to program but didnt have success.

Not many people knew exactly how to use it, or program it but they helped me learn how anyway. Learned a lot just by observing and listening. Have a shallow understanding now.

Didnt know frequencies or call signs. Didnt know how easy it was to bump /change frequency by mistake. Did that on ruck and land nav. Had antenna horizontal during ruck too. Was shy about using radio because didn't want to do it wrong. Only had one battery. Wasnt sure how long that would last. Got some practice on drive home with Washington crew.



Take aways:
-be flexible, open minded.
-train variety of field positions shooting. No more bench groups. Limited bags/bipods.
-maybe less magnification.
-practice on clock more. (I do with pistol, but seldom with rifle)
-try not to bitch or complain. Be positive.
-try to help others
- drink water
-stay focused. Visualize and rehearse

Our own downtime we could have utilized better. Hip pocket training. Or small events like timed weapon disassembly or assembly. Pushups contests. Knot tying classes or contests. Small stuff to fill in between if desired.

Many thanks to Ben and Jen and staff for helping us and making it all possible. Very cool experience!
Great family, great leadership, great location.

Great to meet with like-minded people from across the country.

Glad to have participated and cannot believe more people on arfcom wouldn't leave mom's basement to participate.

Crazy. Get out and train. We need us.

Good stuff.

I have no idea how I ended up with it. Is the address the FCC has correct? ;)

Or maybe I'll just paint it pink. Might even have some glitter around here somewhere...

When I was in Air to Ground Weapons Employment Training, the student who had the worst "dumb bomb" hit of the day had the distinct honor of carrying around a small inert training bomb all day that had been painted pink and coated in sparkles and glitter. Somewhere I have a picture of a buddy with it at In-N-Out.

Knock yourself out

Go nuts. My ugly face is already in this thread a couple times.

Edited to add stipulation- I'd prefer the logo and phone number on my truck be obscured if it shows up in any posted pics

Feel free to post any photos of me

No objections here.  Post away.

<------------

I grant permission.

Stipulation: make me look cool and younger

Thanks. Feels good to be back.

Hell yes!!

Needs the octopus on the head avatar.

If you failed at land nav....like me....

Listen to this.