Another Old Pic

Air Assault!

Published on October 15, 2004 By chiprj In Photography

Here's another picture. It was taken in July 94. This one is from right after Day Zero of Air Assualt School. For those of you that have never been, Day Zero sucks. That's all, plain and simple, sucks.

We started by being lined up and loaded onto trucks. They drove us out to East Range where it was raining, as always (we used to say that if you were in East Range and it wasn't raining, you weren't really in East Range). When we got of the trucks, we had to do push ups for being too slow. Then we were lined up outside the sand pit. It took about 15 minutes to get into the sand pit because everything we did was either wrong or too slow. By the time we started PT in the pit, we were already pretty smoked. Then they took turns leading us in exercises. Each guy got the chance to lead us in 100 of something. Then the next and the next and the next. Within 2 minutes I no longer had a piece of me that wasn't completely covered in sand.

Then they moved us on to the obstacle course. We had to run between obstacles and run in place before and after we did each obstacle. The last obstacle every group had to do was the low crawl under barbed wire. The rain filled up the pits with water, so it was more of a low swim under barbed wire. Halfway through the obstacle, the instructors made us flip over and crawl on the back for a few feet and flip over again. When I got out, I had so much mud packed into my left eye that I couldn't open it until I'd finished the two-mile run.

After the pit, we were moved to the start of the two mile run. We were told that we had twenty minutes to get to the finish line. We had to do the run in boots and full (soaked) uniform and we weren't allowed to walk at all. They told us that there would be instructors along the route making sure that we didn't walk. The run route was a dirt road that started with the first mile going down hill to the bottom of a gulch. The second mile was back up the other side of the gulch. The kicker was that many of the people trying to get into the class had already failed to get in, but the trucks that would take us home were at the finish line. That sucked for those guys. They were told that if they didn't run, not only would they not get into the course this time, but they'd never be allowed to come back and a negative report would be sent to their units.

The run sucked, especially since I had to do it with one eye closed. But I made it well within the time limit. I was in! We then loaded up into trucks and came back to the division parade field. The other guy from my company and I walked back to B Quad together. When we got there, I dug out my camera and we took pictures.

So, here's a picture of me all muddy at the end of Day Zero.

Comments (Page 2)

chiprj

on Oct 16, 2004

And I thought convent training was bad!

HAHA! Air Assault was one of those classes that I'm glad I did, but I'd never want to do again. While Day Zero was probably the hardest and most miserable physically, the entire course was an exercise of coping with stress.

Hee hee hee........how'd ya like getting up to do pt when it's five degrees out......my favorite safety warning was always "be careful not to fall on the ice while you're running" WTF? At least most days over there it would warm up to thirty or so by the afternoon

Yeah, I loved running on black ice down the hill next to Zoekler Station. We had days where we would wish for snow because it would have to warm up in order to snow! One thing about flying was even in the summertime I'd wear my Matterhorns on the aircraft. Our insulation was so poor on the aircraft and it required heavy cooling for the equipment, so it would be freezing onboard. So cold that if you left your water bottle on the floor, you'd have ice crystals form inside in a fairly short amount of time.

Air Assault MOFO! # 30; 1st PSG. What a load of extra fun!

I feel for you! Leadership positions in Air Assault are just painful! Our PSG quit during rappel phase. The first time we had to hook ourselves in at the top of the tower, he gave himself a fatal hook-up. The AA instructor at the top of the tower yelled at him and sent him down to see the instructor at the base of the tower. That guy yelled at thim, too, and sent him to hit all the red logs (20 total red logs, ten diamond push ups with your feet up on the log at each red log). The guy walked back to the pit and picked up his ruck and left instead. He was a MSG and was yelling back at the end that they couldn't talk to a MSG that way!

BlueDev

on Oct 16, 2004

Wow, what a mess. Looks great! Fun picture chiprj. Thanks for passing this along.

greywar

on Oct 16, 2004

You were skinny then... haha....!

chiprj

on Oct 18, 2004

Wow, what a mess. Looks great! Fun picture chiprj. Thanks for passing this along.

Yeah, I was a mess. We (myself and the other guy from my company) went back downstairs (our barracks were on the third floor, our company on the first) and rinsed off with the hose before heading back upstairs. I ended up putting my uniform in the big sink and rinsing them again before I put them in the washing machine. Didn't want to ruin the machine with the red mud.

You were skinny then... haha....!

Yes, I was. And fast, too! I took a PT test about a month after this picture and scored my highest score ever. Missed maxing the run by 9 seconds. Closest I ever came.

greywar

on Oct 18, 2004

Yes, I was. And fast, too!

Squid and beer can't help you maintain that:)

chiprj

on Oct 18, 2004

Squid and beer can't help you maintain that:)

HAHA! I don't know anything about squid... had it once as an attempt to be gracious to a host and I was already in the bag... never again...

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