PreMob Pt 2 - 16 Feb 2009 - 0500

October 1st, the start of the new fiscal year. A dead zone in the financial system of the government. Budgets yet to be approved, money to be allocated, orders waiting to be cut. So why would it come as a surprise to anyone that this was the day chosen for us to leave for Ft McCoy, WI. I was told early on in my career “never go anywhere without a set of orders.” They pushed that one to the limit. We received our orders right before leaving. The bus ride up was long and uneventful. This wasn’t the first time I had been there. Many of the courses I am required to take for my Gov’t job are held there. McCoy is home for RTC North (Regional Training Center). When you come to McCoy as a civilian you stay in a building on post that is as nice as most hotels. I figured we wouldn’t be so lucky. As we rolled through the post we saw an array of housing, from moderately nice to downright dilapidated. We stopped in front of our home for the next three weeks. Over the next three weeks we would be put through a wide variety of cookie cutter soldier training. I was disappointed that not only was it not specific to our needs as an Ordnance Platoon, but a lot of it was designed for skill sets that we would never use. We were very busy the entire time we were there. The time passed as slower than I thought possible. Each day was filled with so much training it felt like several days. I have A LOT of pictures from this segment of our trip on facebook. For Ft McCoy look for albums 2-4 of Mob. Add me as a friend if you would like to see them. Among the cornucopia of training we did various weapons systems familiarization. We got to break apart, rebuild, and fire on ranges the M2 50cal, M240B, M249 SAW, M16A2 Rifle, M9 Pistol, and the MK19 Automatic Grenade Launcher. We were also given familiarization with the Claymore Mine and Fragmentation Grenades. We again did ECP procedures and Convoy Training. Some of the new training that I had not been exposed to in the past were Hand to Hand Combat and Urban Ops. As we had completed a lot of training in Hasting before we arrived at McCoy and because we had a small group, we were actually running ahead of schedule. We were told that we would have the last weekend we would be there off to go do whatever we wanted. People were planning on trips to La Crosse, Madison, Green Bay and even Minneapolis. Cars were rented and arrangements were made. A day or so before the weekend we were told that some O-6 Colonel put a squash on our plans and said we should find more training to do instead. With a sour taste in our mouth we decided to do one of the obstacle courses on post. With my wrist flaring up from the 3 weeks of physical training I elected just to take lots of pictures. The final piece we had to accomplish was our Combat Life Saver Course. It teaches you how to provide a kind of first responder first aid to include giving IV’s. Needless to say our skills left much to be desired. It only took me 2 attempts to hit the vein. The first time I advanced the catheter too far and it ended up looking a bit like this. Second time was the charm. We were all glad when Oct 24th finally came around and we got to take the long bus ride home. This was definitely the most productive segment of our trip. The ranges were in great shape, the instructors were second to none and the barracks was not the worst living accommodations we would see. Another development from McCoy was that my squad leader in 2nd Squad was promoted to SFC and moved into the Command Cell of our Platoon. As a result I took command of 2nd Squad with an iron fist.