We are here in Germany and have settled into what the Army calls a normal Battle Rhythm. For the most part we are over our jet lag and have begun to have a regular daily schedule: PT, chow, training, chow again, off to bed, with some integration with the Brigade we are working with for JRMC.
The day in Germany starts with some PT, right now there is a small gym here, so Superman is happy and there are some tank trails to run on, so I am happy. I took my first good run this morning in about a week: Took a right at the parking lot, hit a tank trail and just kept going. I do have to say, there is one thing that is better than running along a machine gun range when the machine guns are rocking: Running next to a column of tanks or tank-like vehicles as they are driving by. First of all, you can hear them about mile away, it was a nice, quiet morning, then you can hear a distant rumble, then a good solid sustained rumble, then the ground starts to shake and the tanks come around the corner. There was probably a company or so of Bradley Fighting Vehicles (tank-like vehicles, armored personnel carriers, APCs) rumbling by me. Pretty cool, they were probably thinking “who is that dumb-ass out here running in the middle of nowhere?” and I was thinking “Bet they wish they were running with me right now.”
After PT, a quick shower then off to the Techno Café for breakfast. There are probably about 6 chow halls here on the FOB, most of them are run by a regular Army battalion mess section, except for one. The one that is not is run by three contracted German cooks and we call it the Techno Café. At every meal they play very loud, techno and trance type music and I have been told that it is typical German music and everyone here loves it. Now, being of German descent, I can’t really get into it, so I am not sure that everyone here in Germany loves it. But, the cooks seem to like it, and there is nobody else in the chow hall, so we can sit and eat without a pile of soldiers crowding up around us.
Each meal in the chow hall is a standard Army meal, mostly out of a box and easily prepared. OK food, not the best, not the worst I have had. The worst was our first month in Haiti (My SF Team was stuck supporting the Brigade Headquarters) when the brigade’s cooks cooked the same box of supper every night for a month: Chili and Rice, corn as the vegetable and a rock hard chocolate brownie for desert (13 years later, I still remember it). To this day, I have no desire to eat chili. Every night for a month, we would line up with the anticipation that the Army chow elves had delivered a different meal to us, just to be let down like a kid at Christmas that didn’t get quite what he wanted. After about a week, the cooks didn’t even bother to apologize, they just put it on the plate.
Nowadays, along with the standard Army meal comes a pile of help yourself supplements: Rice Krispie bars, Nutrigrain bars, Pop Tarts, Reeses Pieces, bags of cookies, fruit, just about anything sweet. SFC T (Smooth) asked me if I was happy with all of the sweets, I told him that yes, right now I am, but after a week of the same things, I may want to cut back. Of course, if I can keep knocking out a run in the mornings, I will endure.
This afternoon, we finally got to do some driving around and knock out some training on our standard battle drills. A battle drill is similar to a football play for a specific situation that comes up. Today we did our first three battle drills: React to Contact, React to an Ambush and React to an Obstacle. We did pretty well beings how this was the first day that we have actually worked with our vehicles and radios at the same time. Tomorrow, we will knock a few more of the more difficult battle drills and add a few different elements into the training. Should be interesting.
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