A few hours ago, I returned from my deployment to Atropia, the make-believe nation located in the rainforest that is Joint Base Lewis-McChord, WA. After a month of infiltration operations, 3rd Regiment, A Company, 1st Platoon vanquished the aggressive South Atropian People's Army (SAPA) and brought peace to Atropians everywhere...
LDAC is set up like a deployment, including peace talks, cultural immersion briefs, and training. During the final two weeks of the camp, we staged attacks and raids against Atropian towns and resupply points. There were parts of it that were actually pretty awesome, and then there were times were I considered going AWOL or joining the SAPA. Upon arrival, we went through medical in-processing, took the physical fitness test, and started our road to war briefs. The first two weeks, we completed a confidence course, Primary Marksman Instruction for our M16s, Land Navigation, Basic Rifle Marksmanship and IED training.
The next two weeks consisted of actual missions against the SAPA. We camoed up, and moved out. We did STX lanes as a squad. We rotated through commanding a group of 11-12 soldiers. During platoon ops, we commanded a 50 soldier element, all the while being assessed for our leadership skills.
Upon returning from our "deployment", we finished out LDAC with CBRN and a water confidence course. For those of you that aren't familiar with CBRN...Be glad. CBRN stands for Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear, and refers to the point in training when all cadets must enter a chamber filled with 2-Chlorobenzalmalononitrile, otherwise known as tear gas. You enter with a gas mask, take off the gas masks, and try not to die. Cadre ask you a series of questions that you must answer if you ever want to get out of the chamber. This builds confidence in equipment, as well as gives you first hand experience with the effects of riot control gases.
As horrible as this sounds, it wasn't the worst part of the day. Water confidence course. The course consisted of three "obstacles." The first was a boat race with kodiac boats, which involved flipping the boat upside down and then back over while in the water. This was a lot of fun, and we beat the squad we were racing. After this came the single-handed worst part of LDAC. The obstacle consisted of a ladder attached to a horizontal beam with a block to step over, attached to another ladder, attached to horizontal rope. The entire obstacle was placed in a lake, so that if you fell off, you fell into the water. You would climb the rope onto the beam, which was twenty feet up. The beam was around six inches across, and you made your way across to the other ladder. From here, you climbed another fifteen feet until you reached a rope. You would grab the rope and crawl out across the lake until you reached the middle. At this point, you were hanging off a rope, 35 feet above the water. The final part of the obstacle was to let go of the rope, drop into the water, and make it back to shore. I think I hung onto that rope for a solid minute. I cried like a little baby. I'm not afraid of heights, and I'm not afraid of water, but I decided I was just going to hang there forever. Finally, I did let go and thought I was going to die. Obviously, I didn't. I even lived to do the next obstacle.
The third obstacle was a zipline across the lake. The start was approximately seventy feet above the water, and you zipped for a full ten seconds before dropping a few feet into the lake. For some reason, I was completely okay with this, and ended up having a blast.
The final week was spent in the barracks, getting ready to go home. Overall, it wasn't too bad. I made some good friends, and learned a lot. Washington state is one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to, and I didn't want to leave.
That's about it. I reserved a spot with a Military Police battalion in Pittsburgh as an S6 officer. It's pretty much the army version of an IT Manager. As long as I don't get pregnant, fail a drug/PT test, I will commission in 10 months.
