Week 7 is a week that I will never forget. You don't forget pain. Without a doubt the most memorable day of this week was Tuesday. Pepper Spray Day.
The day started out with pain for me in the morning, we had fitness class and in it we had our 1.5 mile timed run. I did alright, but the sprinting that we did last week left my left hamstring aching. So near the end of the run is where I would usually sprint to the finish line, but this time when I tried I got a terrible pain in my hamstring. I hobbled across the finish line at a time of 11:02. Not great but it will have to do.
The afternoon came and there was an uneasy feeling amongst the troop. I was quite calm, there were some who quite noticeably nervous and there were even some insane folks that were excited. We were told to change into casual clothes and meet in a classroom to go over what we were going to get done to us. Our PDT instructor went over what kind of spray we would get, saying that on a scale Jalapeno peppers are 4,000 units of heat; the spray that we would be getting today was 1,500,000 units of heat!!! So if you have ever eaten spicy food and rubbed your eyes times that by about 375 and you have the pain we went through. What would happen was we would close our eyes and the instructor would spray our face, we would have to open our eyes find a troop mate holding a pad, knee it five times and call in on our fake radio for assistance.
After the briefing it was time to go to the arena and begin. We partnered up with a troop mate and the fun began. My partner went first and I had to lead him around outside while he suffered. Then after about an hour it was my turn to get hit. I grabbed the fake radio and stuffed it into my sweatpants and closed my eyes and mouth got sprayed. I remember the smell of it hitting me and then opening my eyes to find the bag I had to knee, at this point it wasn't burning me it was just the smell that I remember. So I started to knee the bag and I felt the radio fall down my pant leg, and then it kicked in. It was like someone slammed my face down on a stove. I found my radio and made my call, and in doing that I got some of the spray in my mouth. So, on top of my eyes and face burning my mouth was also on fire.
When you see people getting pepper sprayed they often run to the eye wash station for relief. We were told not to use it as it gives you relief while you are in the spray but as soon as you get out it comes back. So I never went to the eye wash, luckily for us it was windy and that sped up the decontamination process a lot. After about 20 minutes I could open my eyes for a second or two, and after 45 minutes I could keep them open all the time.
Then came the showers after. It was like going through it all over again. I had the shower so cold that my face felt fine but I was shivering. I took some pictures of the after effects and I will post them when I can.
After Troop 35 got our boots last week there was a policy change at Depot. Needless to say that all troops that don't have their pants with the yellow strip down the side (blues) are double timing it around base. So until we get our blues we will be in running shoes :(
We also had our firearms benchmark 1 this week. I didn't get a high enough score to pass, so I have learning assistance this upcoming week. I didn't get mad like when I got my 'U' in driving, as this is a 'NI' (needs improvement). It also gives me a chance to work 1-on-1 with a firearms instructor to work on my trigger pull.
Another week down and Troop 35 is now over 1/3 done!! 4 more weeks and we will be 1/2 done.
Keep on trucking 35!!!