Combat Hunted

Alright! Its been a while since my last post and a lot has happened. The biggest reason I haven't updated the blog is because I was in the field for a week and unfortunately they wouldn't let me take out my laptop, nor would wi-fi be available if I did. Clearly, the Marine Corps is not up to date in the high speed world of social media and blogging. I plan on bringing this up in my end of course critique. Or would if it wasn't a multiple choice scantron critique.

Anyway, lets back track a few weeks to my Night Combat Hunter. This event was back near the barracks after the Squad Weapons field exercise event and began at 2030 (8:30pm). We headed out to a big field with our NVGs. There were three platoons out there and we split up into 3 different sections. We first spoke with a Sgt who was a scout sniper and he discussed the importance of "owning the night" as Marines. The enemy likes to operate at night and we, with our superior technology, should be able to seek them out, hunt them down and take them out. However, we must have the ability to actually USE that superior technology effectively. So, we, as leaders of Marines, must take on the task of forcing Marines to use the NVGs until they get comfortable with them. And as teachers of future leaders of Marines, they must do the same for us...[queue: absolute darkness]

The next event, we put on our NVGs, which attach to the kevlar, or helmet and then can be adjusted to fit in front of one of your eyes. Again, I decide that I don't need eye protection because I have this nifty gadget that will help me see all the razor-blade leaves that poke me. I'm not sure when I'll learn. I'm adjusting my NVG when I notice that the time-out feature that automatically turns off the NVG to save batteries keeps getting faster and faster. Finally its to the point where if I take a step, my NVG turns off. That's when I turn to the person next to me and ask if they're having problems with their time-out feature. They responded that there, in fact, was not a time out feature. "No, no," I say. "The screen-saver thing that saves the batteries on your NVG after its been idle for a while." From the blank look on their face it dawned on me that not only have I been working with computers for too long, but also that my NVGs were probably broken. How would NVGs know they've been idle?

Anyway, so I played around with the battery and finally took it to my SPC (Bossman) who gave me his NVGs for the next exercise. It involved splitting into fireteams (5 people for my group) and using the NVGs, walk through a path in the woods looking for items that could potentially kill us. We were supposed to be "hunting" these items out being as stealthy as possible in the Quantico highlands before they hunted us. My fireteam was the last group to go and we worked out a plan that involved moving in a Fireteam column and using the IR flood light to signal when we hunted out an object.

Let me be honest, as quickly as I was stabbed in the eye with one of those pointy leaves, that fireteam plan went to crap. That is to say, it lasted all of 20 seconds. In my right eye, without the NVG, I saw only black. And in my left eye, with the NVG I saw only green with a few shadows. Kind of like this:

The whole team moved with all the grace of a two year old in ceramic plate shop. How was I supposed to see anything when not only did I barely have night vision capabilities with my right eye, but I was being blinded by green with my left? We spent literally an hour crawling, tripping, clawing our way through the jungle and through a creek bed trying to just survive. All I could think was that the experience turned me into the hunted, not the hunting. I had no idea what was in the woods set up that could kill me. BUT, I did trip over an RPK about 20 m away from the exit. I can't decide if that was dumb luck or not, but I'm taking it as one point for me.

The last event was talking with a Capt about how to signal at night which was fairly neat.

Up in the discussion queue: FEX1, Land NAV2, R5 (Range 5, Live Fire Assualts), and the Gas Chamber.