Literally to the month. Last time I spent the night in the field with CAP was February 2006.
This past weekend, I participated in a "bivouac" that was planned solely by a cadet officer. Other than a bivouac in November, they have never spent overnight in the woods. Just some 4-hour ES training sessions here and there.
In a nutshell, it was good; especially for a cadet doing it for the first time. A huge pat on the back for initiative, drive and motivation.
Now, here's the funny part. From 1992 to 2006 in DCWG, I can proudly say that we conducted awesome FTXs (SAREXs, DREXs, MTNEXs, TAC COMEXs, WINTEXs, and so on). Very well planned with coordinated air support, military and civilian training areas, turnouts in the 50s, etc. We ruck marched in, ruck marched out. We tested our 24 hr gear by leaving the FOB overnight. We truly did "SURVIVAL training". Great times. I miss them.
This weekend was funny. Again, don't get me wrong, they did a good job on the training side with lost person searches, DFing, survival classes and a "hike". But a lot of time was spent chillin' at the camp site. It was a 2 night 3 day bivouac with about 1 days worth of actual training by my count.
I don't want to sound mean, but I just have share these photos...
Looks like you had some great weather (he says as he watches homes float away down the road).
Sometimes it takes a few less than rough weekends to get people interested in doing things with less
convenience.
With that said, I didn't buy an air-conditioned pop-up so I could ruck in anywhere.
Knowing you still can is great, knowing you don't have to...priceless... :D
Yeah, but these are cadets that like to say "hooah", talk about ruck marching, are looking forward to Hawk Mtn, have already been to PJOC and are dying to go on missions. Can't knock it, that was me as a cadet, young senior member and up until...3 years ago.
It motivated me, to be honest. I consider it a challenge to change things around and hopefully by this time next year, have these cadets GTM 3 and 2. Maybe a couple GTM 1s.
that's my idea of camping fun haha. No but my back doesn't like the ground thankfully it's almost summer and I can break out the hammock.
Hey Stonewall, did you have any cadets bring a blow dryer or curling iron? We did back in 94, when we had a weekend at a primitive campsite at a state park. One even brought a TV and VCR to watch a movie. They got a major shock when they found out there was no electricity at our site. Introduced them to the concepts of fire guard and stargazing. Ah, the good ole days. If you didn't carry it in, you didn't have it, but if it was carried in, it was carried out.
These days they've got 12 movies on an iPod...
OK, we've seen the senior area - where are the pictures of the cadet area? ;D
Last bivouac I went on, my hooch was just that: a poncho hooch. It was the 1st or 2nd week of October, and that year it was unseasonably cold. brrr...
My cadets thought I was nuts. They whined about their tents and sleeping bags.
Man, I do miss a good bivy...
Sorry, guys, but after Dec/Jan in Germany and France and Feb in Korea, VN anytime and Ft AP Hill in August, my idea of camping is a night in a Holiday Inn.
Quote from: bosshawk on March 09, 2009, 05:24:25 AM
Sorry, guys, but after Dec/Jan in Germany and France and Feb in Korea, VN anytime and Ft AP Hill in August, my idea of camping is a night in a Holiday Inn.
oh, the Army positively *ruined* me for camping. I took the ex- camping once when we were still in Michigan, and we had to have a training schedule and land nav and.... Ugh..
Sitting around a campfire does happen on CAP bivouacs, but only after the day's training is done. Doing it felt *weird* w/o some beenie-weenies to cook and combat boots.
She's lucky I didn't make her pull fire watch.
:)
And Paul, I've spent more than my fair share of time in a riverbed in Yeoju in November, some ricepaddies astride MSR1 3 klicks south of Munsan in December, and some little laager site about 35 klicks NE of Cheunchon in March. Brrr, indeed.
Thankfully, the quarters I stayed in at AP Hill this past summer were air conditioned. The heat & humidity in that part of VA is atrocious. Very little field time for me there.
Quote from: NIN on March 09, 2009, 11:30:28 AM
And Paul, I've spent more than my fair share of time in a riverbed in Yeoju in November, some ricepaddies astride MSR1 3 klicks south of Munsan in December, and some little laager site about 35 klicks NE of Cheunchon in March. Brrr, indeed.
Camp Howze?
Last time I was at AP Hill, we spent the whole 2 weeks in a GP medium in Aug. Only breeze we got was when the dustoff choppers were coming over. I was there for a USAR field exercise with a field hospital unit. Being from eastern NC, should have been used to the high humidity, but it was almost unbearable. Especially when wearing the MOPP gear.
Quote from: LtCol057 on March 09, 2009, 04:51:57 PM
Last time I was at AP Hill, we spent the whole 2 weeks in a GP medium in Aug. Only breeze we got was when the dustoff choppers were coming over. I was there for a USAR field exercise with a field hospital unit. Being from eastern NC, should have been used to the high humidity, but it was almost unbearable. Especially when wearing the MOPP gear.
Being a HQ pogue with a cadet program has *some* advantages, I suppose (doing 90% of your work in an air conditioned classroom or office is one)
I wasn't ever much one of those "poncho & a poncho liner in December" kinds of dudes when I was in the Army (although I have photos of some of our infantry dudes at a laager site with poncho hooches rigged and covered with snow.. brrrr. ) Thanks, I'm sleeping in my Winnabago-with-Rotor-Blades over here. The one with heat and electric power.
I found a breeze at AP Hill atop the rappel tower. 40-50 feet in the air, I'm up there taking photos and just the barest of breezes wafts by. Ugh. It was stifling.
Quote from: Trung Si Ma on March 09, 2009, 01:00:32 PM
Quote from: NIN on March 09, 2009, 11:30:28 AM
And Paul, I've spent more than my fair share of time in a riverbed in Yeoju in November, some ricepaddies astride MSR1 3 klicks south of Munsan in December, and some little laager site about 35 klicks NE of Cheunchon in March. Brrr, indeed.
Camp Howze?
Nahh, never spent much time at Howze.
We used to go to the field all the time in the "Bowling Alley" (that big long valley east of Osan that was on the final approach course for RWY 27) , and then often at this huge bend in river near Yeoju, not far from Cp Walker.
At least you guys know what a winter in Korea can be like: My last "camping" in Frozen Chosen was on a hill top one klick south of the DMZ in Feb, watching an Honest John get ready to do a simulated launch. The stove in the GPM froze up and I wound up going to the comm van to get warm at 0300.
When I was at AP Hill, the only quarters were pup tents in the bivouac areas. Of course, being permanent party, I lived in town. What I was referring to was ROTC summer camp a number of years before I was permanent party. AP Hill isn't the end of the world, but you can see the end from there.
Last time I was at Fort AP Hill my Machinegun Platoon humped 15 miles in the rain.....in JANUARY! And the last time (Only time) I was in Korea, Pohang, at the Mountain Warfare facility, I watched in horror...freezing my #$% off as the ROK Marines took baths in the springs that bubble up from the ground in February. CRAZYNESS!
Between '92 and '06, I probably trained at AP Hill 50 times. Between active duty, the guard and CAP, it was like a second home. I froze, sweated, bled, got IVs, puked, practically drowned, had an emergency landing in a UH-1 and watched (listened) as a deer beat the crap out of an M-60 team after it fell into their position at about 0300.
I've got more time in the Wilcox Camp mini-PX than some of you have in CAP :-)
Quote from: Stonewall on March 10, 2009, 01:31:30 AM
I've got more time in the Wilcox Camp mini-PX than some of you have in CAP :-)
Calling the Wilcox Camp mini-PX a mini-PX is insulting to real mini-PXs everywhere :)
Its more of an "abbreviated Shoppette" were it not for the clothing sales items. Which were awfully limited.
Spent March of '90 in ROK for Team Spirit. Our tent city was at OSAN AFB right at the base of a hill where the ROKs had a battery of quad-50's. It was funny to be going to breakfast at O-dark thirty and see the ROK officers out playing golf with a mamasan as a caddy. Then we spent two weeks on a hill watching a bridge over the Han River. The last night we slept in a rice paddy and the next morning amused ourselves while waiting for the trucks to pick us up by blowing all our unused pyro in the rice paddy.Osan AFB had a U-2 setting in a hangar near where we debarked/embarked our Northwest 747. And we still used just poncho hooches in the field! When we got to put one up at all.
Another trip down memory lane thread drift.
Quote from: MIKE on March 10, 2009, 03:03:47 AM
Another trip down memory lane thread drift.
Memories and experiences are what bring richness to everybody's participation.
Otherwise, its a bunch of black words on light blue. Meh.
I think the last time I did "field work" in CAP was back in '94. Nice little trip to Ft Irwin, had some of the Army guys teaching our cadets rapelling. Ate in one of the Irwin chow halls, visited military clothing, saw a few other things on the post.
We slept in the van we brought. A few hardcore types slept on the ground, but knocked on the van door by 3 AM.
The former commander of my current unit wanted to have some field bivouacs, and running "bare bones" operations. He wanted to get away from the stigma of only running ops within walking distance of a hotel (like most of us would actually walk :D ). We never got around to it, but I think it would have been good training.