The Crucible II

In the afternoon, we move to a field exercise where need to move the entire squad and equipment over a berm and across a wide open area during simulated fire.  A berm is a small hill that may or may not be fortified.  The berm in this case has been landscaped.  Instead of a gradual incline, it has a four foot high wooden wall cut into it. This makes it better for cover but harder to maneuver over the top.  We have been instructed to keep our weapons horizontal to the ground so that when ascend and descend the berm we won't impale ourselves or our team mates on it.  When it was my turn to go ever the berm, I quickly jumped up the wall and low-crawled with my eyes on the deck so as not to expose my face to fire.  I got to the far side and dove over the wall.  I dove right onto one of my team mates VERTICALLY positioned rifle which was barrel up!!! Luckily for me I hit it just under my left eye.  I thought I broke my cheekbone it hurt so much.  I was so incredibly mad at this because it just like the DIs always say, "Your lack of attention to detail and general carelessness will end up getting a fellow Marine killed or seriously wounded!!!"  We moved through the rest of the exercise with incredible slowness because we had to low crawl and drag equipment.  When we reached the objective we were all exhausted, dirty and drenched in sweat.  This is when we got a royal ass-chewing from our DI.  I gotta tell you there is nothing like getting chewed out when you are tired and frustrated and you have just completed a hellish task, especially when the person doing it has with held information that would have made it easier and is pissed that you couldn't figure it out on your own.  Once again I have come to realize that I wouldn't have been able to take this 3 months ago and it is one of the reasons I signed up in the first place, but that is no consolation at the moment. As mad as I was at my team mate who gave me a black eye...  I love him compared to our DI after what he did next.

Our next squad movement was an obstacle course.  Exhaustion is setting in.  The third obstacle was a large black dummy hanging on a six foot post that was six inches thick.  We had to strike the dummy with the butt stock of our rifles.  So you can picture this it would be similar to swinging a sledge hammer or using the rifle like a wrestler uses a chair.  When we got to the dummies, we had to hit them three times.  I guess my first strike didn't impress the DI.  He called me a pussy.  I didn't like that.  My second strike didn't impress him either.  He told me I should go back to my whore of a mother who'll tell me it's alright that I suck.  I hit the dummy so hard that I cracked the post and it fell over as I ran to the next obstacle.  The smug bastard told me it was pathetic that it took me three times to break it.  You really can't win around here.