Frustration meet exhaustion

Hey everyone, so its currently Thursday night.  This week has been somewhat more eventful than last, but that certainly isn't saying a whole lot.

I have been licensed on all the vehicles we currently have here available at McGregor which were the ones I posted about earlier, M1088, M1083, LHS and M1151 Humvee.  So thats a good thing to have out of the way.

Yesterday we had our familiarization class with the MRAP which is the vehicle we will be primarily driving while over seas.  From what we have been told we will be driving two different varients of the MRAP.  The first is the MATV, this is a very cool vehicle.  Its the smallest MRAP available and weighs about 16 tons, so that tells you how big this beast is.  Its taking the place of the uparmored humvees as it is DRASTICALLY more mine/IED resistant and much more technologically advanced.  I really wont get into details about it as Im not sure how much I can or cannot say but I will post a few pictures of it below.

The second one we may have over in Kandahar is called the Maxxpro.  This thing is a beast, it is extremely tall and can carry troops is the rear of the vehicle.  I wasnt really able to get many pictures of this one, but what I have I will upload.  The doors alone weigh 600lbs and you need a pneumatic (air pressure system) assist to open them.  They are pretty cool.  Both of these vehicles have hulls designed to break away in the event of an IED detonation.  This means that we can roll over an IED and get directly hit and the worst injury we should sustain is a concussion and minors scrapes and burns.  These things are incredible and a far cry from the early days with the Humvees, I feel safe.  The only down side is that there is a lot less visibility due to the amount of armor on the vehicles.  My job as gunner will be to basically be the eyes and ears of these trucks and relay information back down to the driver and TC (TC is truck commander, he/she sits in the passenger seat and is tasked with raido contacts and calling in medevacs or anything else we may need). 

Today, I did combatives.  I am tired.  It was a lot of fun though.  Basically it was a 4 hour class.  The first hour all we did was "warm ups", this was the only time in my Army career that I thought I was going to throw up due to PT.  It was hot, I hadn't eaten in fear of throwing up and we just ran, did push ups, sit ups, some crap I have never heard of before but Im pretty sure they made it up to make us throw up.  It worked on a few people.  After the fun part, we got into actual hand to hand combatives.  The focus on this class was if someone gets too close for your to shoot them with your M4, to give yourself space to either use your M4, M9 (pistol) or knife to....neautralize them.  It was very good info and things that were relatively simple to pick up on.  The second phase was focused on grappling and take downs.  Over all it was a really good course, probably one of the better and more useful ones I have taken.  I learned some new moves to put on Lindsey if she acts up!! Just kidding babe.

Anyway, time for a shower and sleep! Good night and I love you all! Take care.