Good God we get up early!

So wake-up this beautiful Monday morning was 0200 in order to make the 0250 formation and head back to Rabbit Hill and our Land Navigation Test.  The standard was to find 5 out of 8 points in 5 hours, 2 and a half of which were in the dark, although we did have great illumination from the full moon.  Weather conditions were a perfect 57 degrees....not too hot, and not too cold. 

I set off for my first point, which was fairly easy because it was positioned by a small pond directly north of the main road that runs through the course.  It was about 1800 meters to that point, and after I reached it, I headed for my next, which was about 400m to the northeast.  I had some trouble finding this one because dead reckoning, or relying strictly on your compass azimuth, was a little tough because of the small mountain in my way.  Now the problem with land navigation is that you generally find your pace count, which is a method of keeping track of how far you have walked by walking 100m and counting every time your left (or right) foot hits the ground in that 100m, in the best of conditions.  Finding said pace count in perfect conditions does not allow you to remain accurate over more than around 250m when walking through fields where the grass is up to your hips or higher.  This tends to lengthen your stride, throwing off your accuracy.  There are a couple of ways to counter this.  One is to extend your pace count by a couple of steps, and the other is to make damned sure that your azimuth (direction to target) is accurate so that you will run into the target at or about the correct distance.  If your azimuth is off, and it is dark, you will never find your point.  These points are about chest high, and are red in color, with non reflective lettering indicating the number of the point.  NOT REAL CONDUCIVE TO SEEING IN THE DARK!  You can be within 10 meters of your point and still not be able to see it if it happens to be on the wrong side of a bush or other terrain feature, but I digress.....  I had issues with the second point, a lot of which stemmed from thinking it was in a swamp, and wandering around in said swamp for about 20 minutes looking.

I decided to leave the swamp point for a daylight look, since I was fairly confident I could find my next three points.  I found the next three, and went back to swamp point, only to pass within 10 feet of the point off of the road leading to the swamp.  It kinda pissed me off, but at least I found it. 

My final points were on the complete opposite end of the course, so I double-timed over to them (around 2000m to the first one), and found my final two points in short order.  I made it to the start point with about 20 minutes to spare, and was awarded a GO on the land navigation examination. 

We had hot chow in the field, and when we got back to garrison, the NCOs informed us that, instead of going to our rooms to get cleaned up and reporting back after lunch, they wanted to conduct our short class right away so that we could have the lunch hour to square our Army Service Uniforms (dress blues) away and have a 1:30 inspection.  We finished the inspection at around 3:00 and were released for the day. 

I am sitting in my room putting a PT plan together, as I get to conduct it in the morning.  Two more days until I get to see the family!

Paulson out......