11/11/12

Is it possible to run with a 80 lbs pack? Yes. Does it suck? Oh Ya. :)

Hey everybody!
Good Fast week, this week. Not a lot of time to write so it'll a fast one this time! :)
Sunday 10/28 - Liberty Secured at 2000, went to bed at 2030.
Monday 10/29 - Lights at 0430. Class on Patrolling. Actually patrolled (walked around, sooooooo much fun. ;) ) PT. Rack at 2030.
Tuesday 10/30 - Lights at 0430. Patrol XP. Got main pack and hiked up the Alpha shelf and set up a Patrol base. On security most of night. Around 9 went to COC, radio.
Wed 10/31 - Moved from radio to an LP/OP Listening and Observation Post for all morning. Then moved the PB. Found a guy in the platoon that knew the song, Hey Baby, freaking awesome. :D Held security again. Finally got on QRF, Quick Reaction Force, which means you get to sleep if there's nothing to do. And guess what ... yep there was something to do. Lol. The LP/OP needed a resupply of water. So we did that and had an hour and half left of QRF. So I pulled out my Scriptures and read a little bit. Best feeling ever! Reading my Scriptures while in flax and Kevlar with my rifle in the hills of camp pendlton, amazing! Got some sleep, while that happened we got "attacked"by our instructors. Then we were put back on COC.
Thurs 11/1 - moved to another hill. Briefed on tomorrow's mission. Weapons maintenance. Rack 1830
Fri 11/1 - lights 0500. patrol mission with live rounds. Went back to the barracks. Weapons maintenance. Liberty.

Oct 27,2012 Part 2

   :)
      pain. pain is good, i guess. It lets you know your alive, so it's good. But it doesn't always feel so good. haha :)

      Sunday 10/21  - secured at 1600. All we did was pack for the week and hit the rack at 1940.
      Monday 10/22 - Lights at 0330. Got bussed out to a range. Set up our packs and did an unknown distance shoot. Then we practiced fire and movement. :) this is what you do. You're lying down on the ground. You have to get up sprint for about 10 meters and dive into the ground and start firing so your buddy can do the same thing. You do this until you reach your objective which is normally 200 to 800 meters away. Oh and the ground is extremely hard and if it's not gravel it's covered with rocks. We then went and practiced with radio's. Then we had a PT session using... Sandbags! Oh ya, that was fun... good work out though. :) Then did the same shoot at night. After we were finished our platoon commander talked to us and got mad at us for something one or two people had done in the platoon. We then proceeded to do the hardest PT session of my life. We would sprint 200 or 300 meters then come back do push ups or jumping jacks or air squats or leg lifts or scissor kicks or all the above. It lasted about 2 hours. Lights at 2300.
     Tuesday 10/23 - Lights at 0500. After we do our normal getting up in the field routine we PT'd for another 2 hours plus it was raining. We did 500 air squats straight. Then we proceeded to do a stress shoot which was supposed to show us the difference in shooting in a combat situation. What happened is we shot a single target ten times in the prone and got a number on our hand of how many time we hit it, i hit all ten times, then they PT'd us hard for about 40 minutes and made us shoot immediately after. Again i hit all ten, but then they explained that the shoot wasn't very realistic which i believe. But I had another blessing during the second part of the shoot. So when you do any shooting you wear ear pro (protection). Well during the pt session everyone took out their ear pro, and when i went back up to shoot i didn't have enough time to put in my ear pro. So i took my first shot and my ears started ringing, bad. I took my second shot and the ringing in my left ear dropped about and a fifth and doubled in pain. So I took my non shooting hand plugged my left ear, said a quick prayer and continued with the other eight rounds. After I had finished shooting i pulled my hand out of my ear and the ringing and pain and completely ceased. My right ear was still ringing a little so I plugged that ear for a few seconds and when i pulled my finger out the pain and ringing was completely gone. Also, other guys in the platoon who didn't have ear pro in still had their ears ringing on friday. I feel so blessed. After the stress shoot we didn't have anything to do so we talked with our instructor for a little while and then hit the rack at 1945 which is completely unheard of in the field.
      Wednesday 10/24 - Lights at 0500. We did buddy rushes with live rounds. We then practiced buddy rushes for a few hours and did the same thing at night with NVG's on. It's a weird feeling running down range with rounds from your buddy flying past you. We are about 5 to 10 meters from each other but it's still an interesting picture. And the night shoot, the NVG's weigh down the front of your kevlar (helmet) so your doing whatever you can to see through them so you can shoot accurately. Rack at 2345.
      Thursday 10/25 - Lights at 0430. Got up and it was FREEZING!! When i got out of my sleeping system it was like jumping into a really cold lake. That's the best way i can describe it. We then got bussed to another range and guess what we did... yep, more buddy rushes. haha :) We did a day and night shoot. Although buddy rushes can be a little painful when i took a step back and saw that i was really living my dream. That in it of itself is amazing, to realize that you are actually getting to live your dream and you still have a long life to live to be able to live more dreams. Absolutely an amazing feeling. So after our day shoot they told us the plan for the day and the next day. We were not planning on getting any sleep that night so they let us take a nap between shoots. AWESOME!!!!! Even if it was only an hour and a half it was nice. After the night shoot we police called (picked up all the brass on the range) and got bussed home and actually got to hit the racks at 0100. I hadn't had dinner yet so i ate and went to sleep at 0130.
      Friday 10/26 - Lights at 0400. We then grabbed our packs and did the 15 K hike. It took about 3 and a half hours. It was a slower pace than i would've liked but it was alright. After the hike we cleaned weapons and got released on liberty.

     So that was my week. Only 3 full weeks left! If you want to hang out with me once i get home please write me an email (lifeisatrumpet@gmail.com) and we can plan something out. I would love to hang out with anyone and everyone. Just let me know.

     Thanks for the Letters and prayers! Until next week!
           PFC Chipman

Oct 27,2012 Part 1

What's up everybody?!
      I'm really starting to enjoy my training, fun stuff happened this week with some significant stuff as well. :)
      Sunday 10/14 - Liberty secured at 1000. We had to go to a Corps Values brief by a retired First Sergeant then he also gave a religion brief. I didn't really agree with everything he said but it was and eye opener on how others think. We then got released for an hour for dinner. After that we did nothing for the rest of the day. I'm talking like just stood on line and looked at each other and studied our knowledge. We hit the racks at 1930 but we had 20 man fire watch, again. And again i was lucky and only had it once.
     Monday 10/15 - Lights at 0400. Ate at the chow hall all day. After breakfast again just sat on line and "studied" for 3 and 1/2 hours. We then went and took the Phase 2 test. I passed, but 1/3 of the company failed. We then had classes on the IAR, M27. (HK 416) It's supposed to be taking over for the M249 SAW and eventually the M16, I think. We also had Gunner Bolten, the person our classrooms are named after, come and talk to us about his story in the Marine Corps and what he did to earn his Silver Star. After classes were over we offically had the Split, where all the 0311 rifleman go into 1st and 2nd platoon and all the weapons, 0331 machine gunners 0341 morterman (Barrus) and 0351 Assultmen, go into 3rd platoon. After we got our gear into our squadbay we hit the racks at 2100. I had fire watch and then organized my locker so i didn't get to sleep till 2330.
      Tuesday 10/16 - Lights at 0515. Did the CSRE (Common Skills Retension Exam) Basically you run in full gear from point to point doing different stuff you've learned while being at SOI. lights was at 2115.
      Wednesday 10/17 - Lights at 0330. We got bussed out to a range and worked with the IAR all day and assigned team assignments. I got assigned to be the IAR gunner. Freaking awesome!! lights at 2140.
      Thursday 10/18 - Lights at 0500. All the IAR gunners got to shoot 425 rounds. Again, FREAKING AWESOME!!!! We then picked up the range and hiked home. About 5 clicks with hills, not the funnest thing in the world. lights at 2200.
      Friday 10/19 - Lights at 0330. We did a range movement back to where we were the day before except we had day packs. Then our platoon commander make us run hills for a while. After that we did known distance day and night shooting. After the range was done we got bussed home, :) picture this, there is 98 US Marines with Flax jackets (adding 2 or 3 inches to our body size), rifles (adding 2 or 3 inches to our body size) , and day packs (doubling our body size) all fitting on 1 44 passanger bus. Worst bus ride ever. Funny looking back on it but it wasn't fun. :D haha.

Sorry this week wasn't descriptive like the others the internet crashed when i was writing so i had to wait a week to finish it.

Oct 13, 2012

Hey everyone!

      Well this up coming week is the halfway point! Can't wait to get back home and chill with friends and family till my mission!

      So for my week. Sunday 10/7 - Liberty secured at 1600 then we went in and packed for the week and then we went out and did some combat conditioning. Easy but weird to pt on sunday. Then we got to hit the racks at 2200 but we had 20 man firewatch. I was lucky and only had it once.

      Monday 10/8 - lights at 0400. we got to go eat at the chow hall. we did a little pt.  Then we went to class. Now for those of you in high school your in school from about 7 40 to 2 30 right? You have breaks to talk and walk around between classes, you have different class rooms, different teachers and 30 minutes to an hour for lunch. Well i had classes in the same classroom with the same teacher with a few 10 minute breaks to use the head and fill up on water from 0800 till 1630 with 20 minutes in the middle to eat. Crazy. haha. :) I thought i was done with school. :) After that we went back and practice the first aid we learned and learned how to use claymores. Yes, claymores... freaking awesome. :D We then hit the racks at 2115.

     Tuesday 10/9 - Lights at 0300. We got our main packs on and did a slower movement out to the Alpha shelf, the "mountians" to the south west of the barracks. The movements was about 5 clicks (Kilometers) long and had an elevation change of about a click to a click and a half. We then dropped our packs and started to dig skirmisher holes (6 inches deep and the length of your body). We only had an E - tool to dig with. (A foldable shovel that we use, the spade is about 8 inches long and 4 inches wide.) That took about a half hour. We then paired up with another marine and were told to dig a fighting hole. For me that was about 5 1/2 ft deep, 2 ft long, and 4 ft wide. We had been digging from about an hour when i looked at my hand and felt and noticed a big blood blister between my middle fingers on my right hand. I remembered that i had a pair of gloves in my pack. I went and got them and put them on and said a quick prayer for a blessing on my hand. I dug for another hour the took off my gloves and the blister was completly gone. You couldn't even tell it had been there. I had just expecianced a minor miricale. It was absolutly amazing. We kept digging for another 4 hours and still weren't finished when we got checked. After everyone in our platoon got checked we were told we had been compramised and we had to fill in our holes and get our packs on. This is how most of the guys felt, "You're kidding, right. We've been digging these freaking holes for the past 6 hours and you want us to just pack up and leave? Just like that?" I kinda felt like that but not really, I was in a good mood because of the blood blister blessing. So we filled our holes, got our packs on and headed down the shelf. We walked about a click and set up a defensive 360 position and watched our sectors of fire for the next little while then we got together as a platoon had hit the rack at 2400.

      Wednesday 10/10 - Got up at 0500. Did a slower movement back to the barracks. We got tested on setting up claymores. After that we did weapons maintinance. Then we had a wall locker inspection. We had a class ate at the chow hall and had a gear check and hit the rack at 1940.

      Thursday10/11 - lights at 0330. Put on our day packs and flaxs and did a movement out to Bravo 3, an urban training town. That was about 4 miles away plus lots of hills. But as a platoon we also had to take 4 10 lbs ammo cans, 4 35 lbs ammo cans, 1 50 lbs ammo can, 4 5 gallon water jugs, 1 25 lbs log, and 1 100 lbs log. It took 2 hours to get to the range. After many painful steps and sore shoulders we made it. We then had classes on what we would be trained on. Midway through the classes we saw these big rain cloulds coming towards us, "Aw crap." We went and got our rain gear on and once we did it started to pour. Mud was everywhere. Your boots were heavy. We sat back down in the bleachers to finish our classes. Some people somehow feel asleep so the instructor made everyone take off there hoods so our heads got soaked. Oh and most of us were already a little sick before this. So the rest of the class was horrible. After classes we went and practiced what we learned, how to basically clear a room, how to move down an urban street, and how to react when your convoy gets contact. Fun stuff. While we were practicing the rain stopped and the mud started to dry up. We put all the logs and ammo cans and water in a 7 ton truck to be taken back, which meant we were running back. We did, i did pretty well. I was 13 out of the 92 guys in our platoon. Always something to work on right? :) When we got back we did weapons maintiance then had another wall locker inspection. I got hit on having about an 1/8 or protien powder residue in my water bottle. So I'm on Delta Liberty because of that. Lame, but whatever. We hit the rack at 2100.

      Friday 10/12 - lights at 0400. Ate at the chow hall then had pictures for the company. Basically like senior class photos at high school. Then had classes for a little while and then got released on liberty.

      Well that was my week. I really enjoy hearing about what you guys are doing back home. Thanks for everyone who has writen me and if you haven't i'd love to hear from you. Thanks for all the letters and prayers. Be home soon.

                         PFC Chipman, Bryson B

Oct 6 2012

Bryson left for SOI (school of infantry) on Sept 18. We have talked with him a couple of times. I'll update those on another day. But for now, here is his most recent (and thus far, his only) letter.

Hey Everyone!
      Sorry the blog hasn't been updated lately, i haven't really given my
sister any info to update it with. I should be doing a better job from now
on to update her so she can update you. :D
      Monday 10/1; we got up at 0330 then did a range movement to where we
would be for the day. Range movements are really hard. You have your pack
with your gear (either your day pack 20 - 30 lbs or your full pack 60 - 80
lbs), you're wearing you flax jacket - 25 lbs, and your rilfe another 7 lbs
and you have to hold your rifle with both hands as it is slung over your
shoulder the rifle isn't so much heavy it's just uncomfortable, we are also
in boots and cammies. So that's what we are wearing, now we have to
actually do the movement, all the movements for this week were between 2 or
3 miles one way. Now the instructors that take us to and from the ranges
are by far hands down the fastest guys i've ever seen. Let's put it this
way, I run 3 miles in green on green, tennis shoes and shorts and a
shortsleeve shirt, in 19:39. One instructor runs it in green on
green 15:30. Another instructer runs it in green on green in 15:50, he can
also run it in boots trousers and a flax jacket in 19:30. THAT'S INSANE!!!
So to get to and from the ranges we run, at there pace. Range movements are
probably the hardest things of training. So after we got to the range we
learn how to fire and fired the AT - 4 rocket. Freaking Awesome! We then
had class on the M203 Grenade launcher. We then ran back did some more PT
(Physical Training) and did other random classes. Amazingly we got to go to
bed at 1940, CRAZY EARLY!!!!
      Tuesday 10/2; lights at 0400, movement to a range. while the other
platoons stopped after they got to the range our Plt Cmd (Platoon
Commander) made us run up and down the hills of Camp pendleton for another
hour and a half with our gear still on. After that we finished our run we
got to shoot the M203. Again, FREAKING AWESOME. Although it had a little
more kick than i expected. While I was firing, I went to reload and the
breach came off the the M203. The Combat Instructor came to me grabbed it
shoved it into my throat right below my adams apple for about 15 seconds
while yelling at me the entire time. :) I also got to shoot an extra 15
rounds. :D We then got our gear and ran back to the barracks. When we got
back we dropped our gear off at the barracks and went to class. When we got
back the barracks had been torn up. I was so blessed because i had the
feeling to lock a locker that i don't normally lock before i went to this
class. When i came back I felt so blessed. The other guys who hadn't locked
their belongings had there stuff scattered everywhere. Hit racks at 2200.
      Wednesday 10/3; Lights at 0415. Had morning chow at the chow hall
instead of an MRE (Meal Ready to Eat) what we normally have for every meal.
For moving slow that morning our instructor made us do pointless drill
movements to make us feel dumb. We did day and night land navagation 4
hours each. All you had to do was find your points you were given and trace
the dog tags on the ammo can at that point. I did just fine. lights at 0100.
      Thursday 10/4; Lights at 0415. Ate chow at chow hall, had the Phase 1
test, did just fine. Then had classes for the rest of the day. It was
really hard to focus and stay awake for those classes. We did get lunch and
dinner at the chow hall. Hit racks at 2400.
      Friday 10/5; I had firewatch for an hour this night. Lights at
0300. 10K hike. I finished right behind the company First Sergeant who
was leading the hike. :D Then did fire and movement with a buddy and
live rounds. Again, FREAKING AWESOME!!! Then got tested on basic radio
skills and detainee handling. Did a range movement back to the barrack
(we finished the hike at the range). Cleaned weapons for the rest of
the night got released on liberty at 2200 but had firewatch till 0400.
      So that was my week. I'm listening to General Conferance right
now, that the first church thing i've been able to attend in my 3
weeks of being here. I love the gospel and can't wait to serve my
mission.
      Well until next week, thanks for the Prayer and Emails.
                                        - PFC Chipman, Bryson B

20120813

Hey everyone,
     Well, only a few more weeks! :) This week (finals week, Final Drill, Final PFT, etc.), next week (gas chamber, CRUCIBLE) and the week after (Marine week and Graduation). Graduation can't come fast enough though, lol. But since the time is getting shorter PLEASE DO NOT WRITE ME AFTER AUGUST 24.
     If you have written me in the past month and a half and asked some questions that I haven't answered it is because our SDI doesn't give us our mail, but training presses on. I guess when you're in a war zone you won't get mail much either. All well.
     So what have I been up to? Well, last week we did the final CFT (Combat Fitness Test), 1800 m run, max ammo can lifts in 2 minutes, and a maneuver under fire course. I improved from my initial. I think I was only a few seconds off on the run from a total perfect score. I think I got between a 290 and a 295 out of 300. We drilled a lot last week prepping for final Drill or the DI's super bowl as we call it. And guess what today was. Yep, final drill. :) I don't think I can express how much drill means to the DI's through writing. Let's put it this way if we lost it would be a long 2 1/2 weeks. Well we went last and... we... did a good job. Not our best performance but still good enough to win. :)
     So we go to the crucible next week. I can't wait!
     Well time for me to go. Thanks for the letters and the prayers.
                                               -Recruit Chipman

20120805

Hey everyone,
     Well another week down! I'm doing really good, we finally got mail. (Well some, we didn't get all of the mail.) Thanks for writing!
     This past week was kinda slow. All we did was working parties and drill. It's a good thing I like drill. We drilled for about 8 hrs a day. So, for you marching band people it was basically a really intense 8-8 week.
     So I go back to MCRD today. When we get back down there we should get our cami's with our names and U.S Marines on them. I can't wait for that!
     Now my turn for questions, have they Olympics started yet? OK, I'm good.  :) JK. What is everyone up to? Where is everyone going to school?
     Well church is starting. I gtg. Thanks for the letters and the prayers!
                                                -Recruit Chipman