Intro: Jimming

[Jimming]

Roger Ranger Lefty.

[Lefty]

Jamie, you stand or fall on your own merits.

You remain a viable candidate.

You have described an ambitious summer schedule. Keep us posted as often as you are able on your summer progress. Read all the threads for information about the path to the Regiment.

Once you have completed the trips out west and have returned home, provide a summary of what you accomplished.

At that time, provide your intended PT schedule and list what you think are the items you need to learn first. Depending on what you post, I will give you some tasks.

You need to continue to prove why I should accept you as mentee. So far, so good.

[Jimming]

Roger that Ranger Lefty.

[Jimming]

Hey Rangers, here is a quick update,

There is not much new news, so this will be short. I leave for Sea Cadet Recruit Training in two days, and I'm really excited. This will be my first time in an all military environment for an extended period of time (8 days). I will be living in Navy barracks at the Navy recruit training center with 279 other cadets. From what we have been told, the days are just like those in any military basic training; we get yelled at a lot, we march everywhere, and anytime we aren't marching or being yelled at is spent eating or learning.

The day after I return home from RT I get on a plane and fly down to Colorado for outward bound. My family and I are still working on planning a backpacking trip afterwards. There really isn't much else to add because I already talked about this in my previous updates.

Right now I have been experiencing shin pains after my runs, so I've been tying to take it easy on my legs. It would really suck to have shin splints at RT or at the top of a mountain. I will post my pt scores tomorrow if I have the time. I will also try to post an update when I return home from RT and after Colorado.

[Lefty]

So far, so good.

Shin splints are not a good sign. If they become an issue for an 8 day session, they will be an ominous factor in serious training.

Keep us posted on your PT when you are able, especially your running.

[Lefty]

P.S. Drop the "Hey Rangers" thing. This is not a Facebook site.

Read more posts and understand the courtesy expected of you.

[Jimming]

Roger Ranger Lefty.

[Jimming]

Rangers,
I was unable to complete a PT test today. Pushing out 50 now.

[Jim]

Rangers,
I was unable to complete a PT test today. Pushing out 50 now.

Stuff happens. Never, never quit!

[Jim]

Another week has passed. Never, never quit!

[Jimming]

Rangers, I am back from Sea Cadet recruit training. I had my graduation this morning. Our division lost the honor division title by about 0.004 points, however we still earned the Battle E.

I was division 002, and we had 70 cadets in the division. We had a pretty big chain of command for our division, but the most important people were the training cadre. We were lucky enough the have a Master Chief Petty Officer AND a Command Sergeant Major as our divisions instructors. The two E-9s are recruit training instructors from their respective branches. They taught us almost everything that we learned over the course of the week (I'll get into that later). They were great teachers, but they were at fault when it came to discipline. The cadets there ranged in age from 13-17, and because the cadre didn't want to hurt the kids' feelings, they rarely reprimanded anyone for breaking rules. Because of this, there was almost constant rule breaking from the younger - and even some older - cadets. I feel that if our division had been composed of older cadets, then this wouldn't have been a problem.

The cadets in my division were great, but some of them shouldn't have been there. A small portion of the division was made up of idiots, and I'm guessing that there are always people like this. Though I had expected idiots, I didn't expect people as incompetent as these guys were. These guys didn't know how to stay in step while marching, couldn't figure out how to make a bunk after doing it for 7+ days, couldn't stand at attention, and the list goes on an on. Sadly, my bunk mate was one of these idiots. At the beginning I tried to be nice to him about it. He missed almost all of the instructions because he was daydreaming, so I would politely re-explain everything to him. I would also have to walk him through step-by-step on how to do very simple things. He would constantly put his garbage in my locker, he would leave his dirty laundry in my bunk, and he would "accidentally" borrow my socks. About halfway through the week I realized that being nice was getting me nowhere, so I started being a dick to him, and I don't regret it at all. He started to get his some of his shit together near the end, which made life easier for me.

A large portion of the cadets there were average. They followed the rules, but never exceeded expectations. And lastly, an even small portion of the division were the above average people. They volunteered for just about everything, the excelled past expectations, and helped to lead the other cadets. I would personally place myself somewhere between the average and above average people. I volunteered here and there, did everything I was told to do, and oftentimes I found myself teaching people stuff that they didn't understand because I seemed to learn a lot quicker than the other cadets. Looking back on it now I'm happy with what I did, but I know that I should have tried to take more leadership positions.

Now that I've covered the people that were there, I'll talk about what I learned. The things we primarily concentrated on were our bunks, marching, uniforms, chain of command, general orders, and cleaning. Up until our bunk inspection, we made our bunks a dozen times a day, over and over again. We would march a few miles a day, usually more than 5. We would almost be studying our CoC and other stuff during free time, even though I had memorized everything prior to going. And in the last few day, I spend a good 13 hours sweeping floors.

We also got to do two extra training events. The first was SAMT (Small Arms Munitions Training). We go to use the Navy's simulators. We used the M9 simulators. They were alright, but I have to wait until my next drill in 3 months before I can learn my score. We also got to do Damage Control, which is a fancy term for firefighting. We got to use the Navy simulator for that too. It was fun, but really didn't provide any useful training.

Over the week we only did PT once, and it was extremely easy. There was a good number of overweight and/or out of shape cadets there, so the staff made everything really easy. Even though we only did PT once, the marching and running all around helped me to strengthen my legs, which hopefully will help my in the mountains this coming week,

All in all I loved the experience. Being able to go through a scaled down basic training with two experienced recruit instructors is priceless. It is a rare opportunity that few are afforded, and I know that in the future it will pay off. If you have any questions please ask them because I know I didn't cover everything. I am leaving soon for Colorado so I am a bit preoccupied. If I don't answer you today or early tomorrow, my answer will come in two weeks.

-Jimming

[Jimming]

A lot of spelling errors here that I just saw after posting, no excuse. Pushing out 50 now.

[Dreadnought]

Holy shit, all these kids these days are faster than me (granted, marginally.) I was lucky to run a 15:30 2 mile in high school.

Holy shit again, I remember being 16, in JROTC, and wanting to do what I'm doing now. Seems like a different life.

[Jimming]

Just a quick update before I head off into the mountains. I just arrived in Colorado and I'm already awestruck by the Rockies. I've never been this close to mountains before so I am extremely excited about this. I'll stay motivated, I'll work hard, and I'll be a sponge for information. My next post will be in two weeks.

[Jimming]

Rangers, I'm back from outward bound. It was the hardest thing I have ever done in my life.

I'm not going to take 2 hours to tell you about the entire event, so I will give you a summary of a summary. The first week was very difficult. I had not acclimated at all so when we began to move I would be out of breath immediately. The average weight of out group packs started at about 70 pounds at the beginning of the first week and the average dropped to about 60 pounds by the end of the week. Add an extra 5-10 pounds to my pack for the entire first week because I volunteered to take weight from all of the people who couldn't carry a lot. In the first week we moved only about 10 miles from base camp, however we climbed thousands of feet and spent several days at one campsite. We climbed to the top of Fools Peak, a 12800 ft mountain, however we started at about 10800 ft so the climb wasn't too bad. We also did snow training where we learned how to move on the snow in dangerous conditions with heavy packs. 3 out of our 9 person class were evaced because they got very sick during the week. They did not return.

Week two is when things got really difficult. Our packs started at 60 pounds and ended around 45. I was still taking an extra 5-10 pounds now, except it was because I was carrying all of the gear that the evaced people had left behind. We began to traverse about 3-6 miles a day and climb about 1000 ft up and down on a daily basis. We went over some very dangerous passes. The most dangerous one we covered took 9 hours. It was at about a 50 degree angle, and all we had to grip was loose dirt and gravel. We climbed about 1300 ft on this material, got to the top of the pass, and climbed all the way back down 1000 ft. The second week contained about 4 days of 15+ hours of nonstop moving.

The last day of week two was our Final Challenge. It was a 16 mile movement where we would climb a total of 2400 ft up and 3000 ft down, however the up/downs were just quick estimates that we made before we began moving. It only took our group 17 hours to make the movement. We went over one very large pass, climbed over or around 4 mountains, and moved on flat ground for a very long time. Since nobody in my group was willing to lead, I lead our group for 12 of the 17 hours. When I first took over, the previous leader had taken us off track and in the wrong direction so I spent a while finding our location on the map and then getting us back on track. About 4 hours into my leading time, the clouds came in and the temperature dropped from 80 degrees to about 40 degrees. Freezing rain and hail then began and continued for 3 1/2 hours. All of our clothes/boots/gear got soaked which added another 10+ pounds to everyone's packs. Some people, including myself, began to show symptoms of hypothermia so our instructors sent us in a slightly different direction that took us to base camp sooner. The distance remained the same.

I learned a lot about myself during this trip. It taught me that perceived physical and mental limits are nothing, and that I can push myself a lot harder and farther than I ever could imagine. I also learned a lot about my leadership abilities and where I am strong and weak as a leader.

I got home yesterday and weighed myself. I lost 8 pounds, most of which was muscle by the looks of it. I am kinda pissed off about this because it's gonna take a lot of work to get back into shape. I lost so much muscle because I hardly got any protein while out there, and any protein that I did manage to get went directly to my legs. Burning over 4500 calories a day and not eating very much is not a good combination. My legs and heart are a lot stronger though. I haven't gone for a run yet but my guess is that my new high red blood cell count will make running easy, so I will be working to maintain that.

I know there isn't a lot of information in these short few paragraphs so if you have any questions about what I did/learned please ask.