Basic Training Journal: Friday, August 22nd

Today was intense. We had a 3 mile road march to the land navigation course, and about a mile of the march was through the woods. That was rough but the sun wasn't out yet so we didn't have to worry about that on the way there. We had field chow after reaching the land navigation course. After chow, we were briefed on how to use a compass. We were then seperated into groups of 5, and one person was designated the compass guy and he got a card with directions.

For example, it might say "On an azimuth of 220°, go 600 meters". You would use pace men to keep track of how far you have traveled. Their was a 100 meter strip of road that you used to count how many steps it takes you to reach 100 meters(mine was 60). The pace men would start counting their steps and the compass guy would make sure they stay on the correct azimuth. It's a good idea to mark down on paper each time the pace men travel 100 meters so you don't forget! You would just keep doing that till you reached the specific distance. After that, you'd look around for markers posted on a tree nearby and write the number down that's on the marker.

The land nav course was pretty easy. Everyone received a go—the requirements were to find at least 3 of the 5 markers in two hours. Our group got 4 out of 5 because we strayed off a little and found the wrong marker. Each group has different directions to their markers so you can't just follow other groups around. One group should have received a no-go but they were given a go...you'll see that kind of stuff happen in BT:-)

I was surprised the land nav course was the way it was—we didn't use a military map at anytime. I thought the course would reinforce what we learned yesterday in the classroom but it was completely different.

After everyone completed the course, we had lunch. We then marched further on to an area with classrooms. We got quick classes on radios, the phonetic alphabet, stuff like that. After that we lined up in formation and cattle trucks came to supposedly pick us up, but only some platoons got on the trucks.

We were all supposed to march back but they thought a thunderstorm would roll in during our march back so they were going to use cattle trucks. Unfortunately, the sky cleared up fast and we were forced to march the 3 miles back to the barracks. It really sucked because the trucks already came to pick us up, but the dril sergeants decided not to use them.

When we got back to the barracks we went immediately to dinner, then showered and polished our boots like always. Time to go to sleep now!