NIACT part 2

Here is a typical day: up before 0500, breakfast at 0530, formation at 0600 in full "battle rattle" (body armor), then load the buses for the trip to one of the many ranges at Fort Jackson. At this point get ready for a large serving of hurry up and wait - a recurring theme throughout all three weeks of training. There is a safety and orientation brief, lane assignments, and a favorite of the Army: getting into lines. Eventually your turn to shoot comes and I always enjoyed it. Lunch would be in the field too, usually MREs (prepackaged meals ready to eat). We had 5 rifle events and 3 pistol events, each most of the day.

I did well with the pistol, earned the Expert qualification. The rifle was another story. The Army's rifle qualification is much more difficult than the Navy standard. The Army uses a range with pop-up targets at distances between 50 to 300 meters. The targets come up one or two at a time in a set pattern, from 3 to 11 seconds depending on the range - 40 targets in all. It was a humbling experience because I had previously shot pretty good at the static bulls eye target. During the pre-qualification day I failed to get a good enough score. On qualification day I was shooting much better but had bad luck of a lousy magazine that kept causing weapon malfunctions (jams). During the course of fire I had three such stoppages, you have to take the corrective action, in the meantime the targets keep coming up and down. Close, but still a fail. I was not a mandatory qualification for the rifle (only those carrying one into theater were - typically junior enlisted) so the Army did not provide me any additional opportunity or training. They considered it a familiarization for the officers.

Let me tell you about the body armor. That stuff is heavy. This is not like the soft bulletproof vests that you see police wearing. There are composite material plates that are inserted into the front, back, and sides. Those plates can stop some serious firepower but at a cost, its really heavy. I'd guess that between the helmet, plates, and all the various other pieces of the armor it weighs about 50 pounds. You'll also be carrying a weapon(s), ammunition, water, and other gear you need. I'm glad I was doing this training in late October during cool weather. I really feel for the troops wearing this equipment in the desert.