Crushing hard in Marine Bootcamp and Operation Semper Fi

Chapter 38

The events of Basic training do not occur in this exact order, I tried to make it close but some events are out of order.

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Ash's POV

Laying down range, baking in the hot summer sun under the watchful eye of English, life refused to get any better. The sand, dirt and grass combination below me was crawling with fire ants and random insects that would fly up out of the grass and cloud around my face, making for a very pleasent situation. 

The reason I was laying down with my feet spread wide apart was because today we were learning how to shoot our M-16's. I had personnaly never handled a weapon before and the week before this, three weeks after Braxton deployed were spent hours upon hours taking the M-16 apart, naming the parts, cleaning the parts and reesembling the weapon. Today, Thursday August 13, 2012 I would fire my first weapon.

"Daniels what the hell are you doing?!" English said coming up to me from behind. 

I looked at the ground and answered her, "No excuse Ma'am!" 

"Well Daniels your gonna destroy your shoulder with the weapon where you have it.!" 

I realized my mistake as I sheepishly looked at where the weapon was and adjusted it to where it should be.

"Even with this adjustment I can guarentee you will have some brusing tommorow." She said cackling as she walked away and went to go yell at the next person. 

I re-examined the rifle checking to make sure all the parts were in place and the saftey trigger was still engaged until English was ready for us to fire. 

Looking to my right and to my left I examined my peers who were either doing better than me or getting yelled at by English. They were a great group, I had come to know a few of them throught the weeks after Braxton deployed. 

There was Chloe Weavers an 18 year old from Jackson, Mississippi, Piper Hodges from New York, New York. Both of them I knew farely well, and was on a first name base with when we had time to talk, even the little time that it was.

Chloe was laying on the ground to my left , she was having trouble adjusting her sight on her weapon and I was all apt to help her but English got to her first.

"Weavers didnt you pay attention in my class?!" English shouted at the poor girl.

"Yes Ma'am!" Chloe shouted back, her voice still timid.

I could hear English sigh as she bent down to help Chloe make the neccesary adjustments.

The range was 500 yards with targets set up at 500, 300 and 200, today we would fire and Monday we would have our final test for rifle qualification. We would get five bullets and we would have to make contact with the target at least once at all three distances, and then next week wo would shoot again for our makrmanships test.

I reached next to me and picked up these huge headphone type things to block the noise of so many rounds being shot simultaneously. I took off my Patrol cap and put on the headphones. We had been instructed once the actual targets were visible on the range to fire at each target, we had 10 bullets. 

I wiped my sweaty palms on the rear of my ADU's and looked into the sight and disengaging the saftey . 

Looking down the sight the range became so much more visible and clearer. I lined the crosshairs up with the 200 yard target, and then brought the rifle upwards ever so slightly to hit the center.

I clicked the trigger and was rewarded with the kick of the fire and I looked down the range.

The bullet had hit dead center.

I felt a tap on my shoulder as I turned to see who it was.

"Beginners luck, now do it again!" It was English.

I sighed and looked down the range again within the sight. The next target at 300 yards was smaller as I lined up the crosshairs. I angled the muzzle of the rifle upwards again and pulled the trigger.

The pop was evident as I felt the rifle kick again, my shoulder was already sore after two rounds. 

Peeling away from the sight I grabbed the binoculars that were also laying beside me and put them up to my eyes. The plastic hot in the hot sun.

This time the bullet was slightly lower than the center but definitly good enough for qualification.

"That was a good one Ashley." I heard Chloe mutter beside me as not to draw attention to us as I watched English walk up and down the ridge, kicking up sand with her boots. 

Taking a peek at Chloes's targets I saw that she had only fiored one round at the 200 yard target and it had only clipped the bottom of the target. 

I whispered over to her once she had removed her headphones, "try aiming your muzzle upwards slightly it help alot." 

She grinned back to me as she replaced her headphones and brough the weapon up again. She clicked the trigger and I watched it whizz straight towards the 200 yard target. It was much better this time, almost halfway to the the center.

Turning my attention back to my fnial target I took aim and hit it 3/4 away from the center, not to bad considering the target was pretty small. 

"Daniels try it standing and sitting until you run out of ammo." English shouted at me, 3 recruits over.

"Yes Ma'am!" I hastily replied.

I fired and fired from diffffernt positions until I had run out of ammo and by then English was collecting us and getting us to gather our gear and re saftey our weapons.

"Get your crap and your persons over here NOW!!' She continued to shout once I had gotton over to her waiting for the rest of us.

"10"

"9"

Women were scattering now trying to collect their stuff.

"8"

"7"

"6"

Five were left.

"5"

"4"

Finally all 15 of us were in line, loaded down with packs and our M16's were in our hands, muzzle pointed down. 

"HYDRATE!" She commanded.

I grabbed my canteen hanging onto the side of my pack and unscrewed the lid taking in large mouthfuls of lukewarm water until I was satisfied. 

She marched us out off the range and down into the dense swampy woods below and out to the dining hall for lunch.

I whispered myself, "Until tommorow".