Week 4- Scan Your Lanes and Prepare to Fire

BRM I love it, the Army is paying me to shoot weapons. Many of the students in the class have shot and qualified before, so the cadre does not insult your intellegence by being overly repetative. Its a fun week and I enjoyed it, its also the first time the platoon got to talk and build a little comaratory.

Monday- Classroom instruction on the M4 rifle. Assembely dis-assembely, how to lean the weapon, how to shoot the weapon. There were a few new things, being in ROTC we never possessed the resources to shoot with an M4 let alone a M68 CCO (red dot optical sight). We were also givent the PEQ15, a laser sight with the ability to use IR, and my first set of NOD's (night vision). It was informative and a short day. Pay attention because if you do not, when you get out on the range you will look stupid playing 20 questions.

Tuesday- Group and zero for day and night. grouping with the new equipment was a little harder task than I thought it would be. Make sure you maintain the same sight picture every time. I felt like a little kid when we got to use our NOD's, it was my first time and I realized quickly that most of the other students were in the same boat, since everyone was making faces and "gestures" in the dark so that thier buddy could see. Shooting with the NOD's took some getting used to but, you use a laser to line up your target.

Wednesday- LOMAH (Location Of Hits And Misses) This was a very productive shooting exercise, because the system gives you instant feedback not only if you hit but where the rounds are landing. We had multiple iterations with a fellow student helping coach you. We attemped to do this for night but there was overcast skies and no one could see, our NCO's adapted to the situation by placing chem lights on the targetsx to shoot with our NOD's on (it worked really well).

Thursday- Record Qualification began in the morning after trans to the range. It was a very bumpy start to my day, I shot a 3 out of 40, and as some of you might know that didnt sit well with me. When I got up from the firing line I saw me M68 do a complete turn in its mounting rings. So every time I had shot the sight had made a quarter turn, lets just say my sight picture was not the same. Plan B kicked in quick and I used one of my buddies weapons and shot a 37 out of 40. A bit of a difference. Dont worry about qualification, the cadre do everything they can to set you up for success and you also get three itterations to hone your skills.

Friday- Recovery/ Weapons cleaning. I did not know you could clean a weapon for 8 hours and still not have as clean as it needs to be. We got a saftey breif and left for the weekend.