So, Let's Review...

Alright, for lack of anything really new and interesting to enter today (although there will be a bit of news here after this first bit), I've decided to go ahead and tackle some of the assumptions I'd posted earlier on that people had given me to think about.

1. It's a lot of fun, it's good for your career, and a once in a lifetime experience.
This one has yet to be proven or disproven, but given that the Navy ain't a career, I think it's on a one-way trip to oblivion.

2. You'll make a lot of cash over there. An insane amount.
Yeah, this one is already looking good, and I'm not even over there yet.

3. You're coming back a first class.
I have some major doubts about this one, particularly given how many second classes make up the total IA strength we have going on this one, and of those, a good deal of them are IT's.

4. When you get back, I'll be your detailer. You'll go through me and have your choice of shore stations.
My final opinion of the Navy hinges on this one. Preferably, I'd like to go to Florida and get me some of that thar instructor duty, and get me a house and settle down. I start negotiating for orders a month or two after I hit the sand in Afghanistan, apparently.

5. Not many people go outside the wire. 90% of you won't ever leave the safety of the base.
According to just about every Drill Sergeant we've heard, this is a complete falsehood. We'll all get a chance—more than once—to go on a convoy patrol. Huzzah.

6. Most of your stress will come from getting used to the Army way of doing things.
Hahaha, nope. The vast majority of the stress I've gotten over the past couple of weeks alone have been from my Navy peers. The majority of them are being all-too-typically Navy, and their imitation of the Army staff is getting under my skin worse than any parasite ever could. No, this one is most definitely a false assumption, but then, I knew it would be from the start.

7/8. Assumptions either proving there would or wouldn't be downtime in South Carolina.
There is and isn't a lot of downtime in the training here. When we do have it, it's quickly filled in with mindless repetitive tasks like, cleaning our weapons even though they were cleaned mere hours ago after we finished firing, and are still clean from said cleaning session. Although I've gained a new respect for Army grunts due to having some pretty cool instructors down here, it's painfully apparent that the Navy as a whole follows the same gameplan.

And there we have it for the assumptions.

News...

Saturday wasn't fully our own—much like it wasn't last week—but then, it wasn't fully theirs, either. The only thing that we had to was go to the simfire range and learn when to shoot versus when not to shoot. Sounded pretty straightforward, really, but in the end... we had the usual level of machismo going on from some of the asshat males (and I'm sure we had some females doing the same):

"Remember, guys: you gotta kill the women and children, too, before they grow up to become terrorists themselves."

This is coming from a man with so much grey on his head, I'm surprised he hasn't been kicked out for high-year tenure. What got me about this particular guy was that when we were all done and released for the weekend, he had his own three kids over to visit him. Had I been more tactless and far less caring, I would've said, "So kids, ask your father to explain to you his stance on Arab women and children. It's quite amusing."

But of course, I digress.

The simfire range was pretty simple, but my particular group got shafted with all but one scenario filled with peaceful endings, and we didn't legitimately get to shoot at any of the targets whatsoever. It was odd, though, because there were rioters outside one of the checkpoints, just shouting. Alright, that's fine... sticks and stones and all that. But when one of the local law enforcement showed up with an AK47, and the rioters went and snagged the weapon from him, pulled him off the truck, and proceeded to bash in his trachea, sorry, but I'm gonna open up.

And I did. I took careful aim and shot the one man who'd grabbed the weapon off the cop (and was pleased to see on the playback that my shot had, in fact, hit true and only gotten him).

Then I was grilled by the Drill Sergeant on why I did what I did.

"With due respect, Drill Sergeant," I told him, "If I saw one of them grab a weapon, and then seriously injure one of their own, I didn't want to risk seeing what they'd do to me."
"Alright," he replied, "I'm just making sure you can defend your actions."

In my head, my logic was sound, just to make sure that's clear.

Anyway, once we were done with all that, we went back to the barracks and were cut loose to clean them up and prep them for inspection. I went up to the clearing barrel to go through that ritual that'd made—I'm willing to wager—all of us pretty complacent about it. Particularly since it's not anywhere near as bad over in the country we were going to.

I pulled the charging handle back, didn't see a round in the chamber, let it go, and squeezed the trigger.

BAM!

One of the blank rounds that'd been in the blue training magazine we'd been told to put in fired off, and flew to the ground. It wasn't that loud, really—maybe about as loud as a firecracker—and the shell looked the same as it had before it was fired. Still, I got a slap on the shoulder, and a warning put out to everyone: "Make sure you take out your blue mags, people."

Yeah, complacency is definitely bad when it comes to weapons. Still, I'm fortunate to catch on after at most one mistake.

After that, I went out in town with one of the other guys I'd gotten to know. Stopped at the Army Exchange to look around, then caught a $25.00 cab to go to a pretty huge mall setup downtown, and watched JUMPER. To be honest, the story—if there is one—is pretty weak, but the gimmick and effects are phenomenal. And best of all, Hayden Christensen isn't a complete bitch like he is in the other movies I've seen him in (episodes two and three of Star Wars, anyone?).

From there, we went and checked out a store that specializes in military gear to try to find me a neoprene face mask and some gloves (it's been getting cold here, and I've been told Afghanistan gets even worse during the winter months), but no luck. They did have some gloves, and they felt awesome (the name "2nd Skin" was actually quite apt), but I didn't feel like paying $40.00 for them. So we went to Wal-Mart to look for some stuff, and the first thing I wanted to do was to get a new el cheapo watch.

For those of you that don't know, I've got some serious OCD issues, and when it comes to watches, I have some crazy criteria that they have to meet before I'll settle on one. In no particular order, that criteria is:

1. It has to be rather small and stream-lined.
2. It has to have a masculine design, while still following number 1.
3. If I can get some metal in there with the plastic, so much the better.
4. Due to how much I can sweat, plastic/rubber bands are great. Metal is an alright last-resort.
5. The font has to look good. Not too tall, not too short.
6. The watch face itself has to be laid out in a relatively minimalistic design, but not too minimalistic.

That in mind, it took me a good twenty minutes or so to find the right watch. And once I did, I still had some complaints with it, as it's silver with bronze highlights. Everything else is acceptable, however, so we went on. Got me a few movies (Army of Darkness, Inside Man, and the Riddick trilogy on a single disc), some silver sharpies to ID my stuff, and a 4Gb thumb drive.

From there, on to Chick-fil-a, and then back to base at 9:00 PM.

Huzzah.

Just a little bit more shopping today for some extra niceties. Might get a DS, might not. We'll see.

Over and oot.