Miracle--after my back went
into excruciating pain during
manual of arms (brought tears
to eyes) my back healed
completely. Even my feet are
feeling better. Ankles still hurt.
I'll go on road march tomorrow.
No code status for me.
Rifle training. Tomorrow we
zero. Hand-to-hand combat today.
I remember that day. I was getting used to the chronic, low-level pain but for whatever reason, standing their in full pack and gear doing the manual of arms was shooting sharp pains through my back and neck with every movement. And it seemed like the manual of arms exercise just wouldn't end. That was a low point of basic training.
When we were finally released back to the barracks to clean our weapons and get ready for the next block of instruction. I lay down on my bunk and started disassembling my rifle on my back. Whatever was wrong, it started to subside, and one soldier who claimed to know chiropractor skills tried to crack my back to fix me. I had last minute change of heart and resisted that effort to lift me and crack my spine, exclaiming that I felt great! I was hasty in assuming my back was healed completely. But just a return to chronic pain seemed like heaven at that point. And just in time for hand-to-hand combat!
Zeroing our rifles to make sure the sights were properly aligned must have meant we were in for serious shooting.
Shooting was fun. Heck, I even enjoyed carrying around a M18A1 claymore mine on me, along with the firing unit and test unit, of course. A bunch of us had various extra equipment on us and in down time we were supposed to provide instruction on our piece of equipment. I don't know why, but the fact that the mine was labeled "Front toward enemy" on the business end of the curved weapon cracked me up. It's basically a really big one-time-use shotgun. To this day, if I had to set up a mine, I'd never forget that you always take the firing unit with you when you go out to set the actual mine.
