As I mentioned in previous articles, the Navy does not train you in RTC to fire weapons. One day we were in the admin office and they said that the Navy were looking for volunteers to train for a mission. Anyone who wants to volunteer, take one step forward now. I stepped forward and after that, Penny stepped forward. While we were participating in simulated war games, I was being trained for Operation Enduring Freedom Eagle with Penny and two of the Master at Arms from 7th Fleet. I had long known that I would never get to try out for SEALs, so this was the closest that I was ever going to get. The mission was to detach from 7th Fleet to temporary assigned duty (tad) and man a barge in teams of two, to keep watch on the terrorist movements. We were trained by the United States Marine Corps F.A.S.T team. It was an expedited course full of classroom and weapons training. I believe that I was the only one of the four taking the mission seriously. I would go back to my rack at night and after a shower, practice the acronyms we were giving. Then when the F.A.S.T team officer quizzed the master at arms, they had not studied and I ended up giving all of the answers. Not that I was hot shit, because I was firing a 9mm handgun for the first time in my life when we had weapons training. I think I ended up shooting Penny’s target instead of mine and the F.A.S.T team officer had to tell me a few times not to pull back on the hammer. I was just to shoot and the weapon would fire without me doing that. When we were done, the people who were mess cranking were throwing out their 5 ft tall bags of food waste on the opposite side from where we were shooting. The enlisted members of the F.A.S.T team got their M-16’s and lit those bags up. It came as no surprise to anyone that the military had chosen another group for Operation Enduring Freedom Eagle. HEAR MY SONGS (https://open.spotify.com/album/0hQjRsxMBe0SnOmUMd0cif)

Share this: Twitter

Facebook

Like this: Like Loading... Related