Early, Early, Late

I haven't been online as much this week because our platoon has CQ. Basically I have to go downstairs and sit at a desk by the door for an hour during the night. Because of how this breaks up my sleep I have to go to be right after returning.

This is tower week, last was ground, and next week is jump week. So far we have learned to do a mass exit on the 34' tower (1 jumper a second, staggered a half second of the other door). Yesterday we did the Sling Landing Trainer, another PLF device. This medieval torture device was designed to teach you to "slip" and give you more practice on the PLF. Slipping is the act of pulling down on a set of risers to move your parachute in one direct or another. By slipping into the wind just before the ground you can really slow your self down. To simulate this we put in a harness and jump off a 12' platform where the straps are adjusted so we swing a foot or so off the ground. The pain comes from the poorly designed leg straps and the falling off the platform over and over. I was assigned to the detail of unhooking jumpers from the harness all day and only got in half of my required jumps on this hateful thing. I will probably have to finish it up tomorrow afternoon.

Tomorrow morning we are going to be doing the 250ft tower. Because there will not be enough time for our whole platoon to do it, there is a chance I won't. It looks like fun, but it is just one more chance to get hurt before the real thing next week.

Oh, and to compound the CQ shifts this week tower week has us on a Early, Early, Late schedule for chow. We are the first company to eat Breakfast, and Lunch, and the last to eat Dinner. This just means that the training day is the longest during this week and that we have been getting released about an hour later than last week.