On Tuesday I ship out to Fort Sill Oklahoma to start basic training in the army. Mine is going to last until September, though, because I'm doing OSUT, which is just basic and AIT training together. 13 weeks and 6 days. I'm very excited and I'm starting to go off the walls with boredom. It's going to be so much better than just sitting on my butt all summer. Night fires, MILS(think laser tag), MOUT(urban assault training), and convoy defense have all got me excited. I'm even looking forward to the 12 mile road march. And I get the new uniform, which is digitized camoflouge and has boots that don't need to be polished(yes!). Since Fort Sill is one of the more traditional forts, I doubt I'm going to get the soft and gentle basic training they're starting to implement at Fort Jackson and Leonard Wood. Just the way I like it. My only fear is that I'll injure myself so that I have to spend a few weeks in a medical unit and have to get recycled, which would really **** up my college schedule. So, can I get some of those Massassi vibes?

edit: also, because of the pre-basic training program the Utah National Guard has, I'm going to be a little ahead of the curve than most others. I can already beat the minimum on the PT test and I know a lot of things like how to medically treat someone on the field, how to disassemble and assemble an M16, how to fire an anti-tank weapon, how to throw a grenade, etc etc. Fun stuff.

I'll most likely have to serve my crap next year or so...

Good luck! Have a vibrator!

*vibrates*

Good luck!

Thats where my dad went to Basic. Good luck, man.

Good luck, seriously. BTW, what unit are you in?

I get to have a chat with four drill instructors from MCRD San Diego tonight. Will be fun, eh?

I want you to be the person who says 'Oh ****' when the bus is stopped and silet before your Drill Sergeant comes on the bus, okay?

UBER VIBES *huggles for Rob* good luck!

UBER VIBES INDEED!

145th Field Artillery

haha!

Have fun.....

What's digitized camoflauge?

Good luck.

Freelancer, look up the ACU.

digitized camo...

http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/images/GEAR_Jordanian_KA2_Camo_Uniforms.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/2006/03/fractal-creep-new-digitized-camo-uniforms-for-usaf-usn-jordan/index.php&h=143&w=135&sz=24&tbnid=g0uTAEjk-YmgNM:&tbnh=88&tbnw=83&hl=en&start=1&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddigitized%2Bcamouflage%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN

http://www.hyperstealth.com/USMARINES-MARPAT-Forest.gif&imgrefurl=http://www.hyperstealth.com/camo/faq/&h=81&w=108&sz=6&tbnid=2SDRSfzxWFivwM:&tbnh=60&tbnw=80&hl=en&start=3&prev=/images%3Fq%3Ddigitized%2Bcamouflage%26svnum%3D10%26hl%3Den%26lr%3D%26safe%3Doff%26sa%3DN


yeah its nothing like the camoflauge my dad used when he was a major in the army. i actually saw the digitized camo on some guys when I was coming back from my granddad's funeral last year. they were all on the plane and I saw all their uniforms had digitized camo. I wasnt used to seeing it

anyways good luck Rob

Computer generated camoflauge. The older BDUs are the uniforms with the patches of brown, green, and black. However, they developed a way to break up a soldier's outline better essentially using multiple blocks of color. It looks like just a bunch of pixels up close, but it's supposed to work very well.

Laura's pics don't seem to be showing up, at least for me, so here's another pic.



On there you'll notice they got rid of buttons and having to sew rank and patch on. They replaced it with velcro(I think?). Thing is, buttons don't make sound. Velcro does. They also slanted the pockets so it's easier to access the pockets when you have gear on.

Uh oh, it's the kung fu collar cammies! I think they look washed out, but whatever, they could work really well, I just haven't seen them except on guys walking around at Douglas or Williams.


A SHORT HISTORY OF DIGITAL CAMOFLAUGE.

BTW, I think I had a couple friends who went into the 145th, but haven't talked to any of them in a long, long time. Good luck though, I've heard good things about more or less all of the Utah Guard units.

Best of luck with that, sounds like fun!

Oyé! FGR, any idea where you're planning on serving yet? I'm also finally doing my service next summer (I'll be 21).

I had to delay due to Uni deciding to upgrade to the EU-standard format juuuust when I would've gone and I would've missed the latter half of some courses that wouldn't have been available any more.

I'll be at UudPr with the rest of us Hurris as a green-beret coastal jaeger.

They're "washed out" because they're supposed to be ideal for working in multiple environments. And that link isn't entirely correct. The Army has had about five different digital patterns for quite some time, CADPAT was influenced by one of those.

This'll always be my camo of choice for woodland enviroments.

All the other digi camoflauge patterns are designed for multiple environments and they don't look like they got left out in the sun.

And no, Colnel O'Neill probably did come up with the original theory, but it was far from having 'five different patterns' that preceded CADPAT. The ACU was developed after MARPAT, which was developed with the help of the Canadians.

No...there are two distinctive MARPAT and CADPAT designs, one for green environments, on for brown, the ACU and Multicam uniforms of the Army are designed to work in both green and brown environments.

Which it doesn't. A ton of guys on my paintball team use it, and in the green woods, they stick out like a sore thumb. It looks more like a bright tan/white when surrounded by thick forest vegetation.

I was meaning that the woodland MARPAT is supposed to work in all woodland environments, and the desert in all desert environments. Looking back, it's semi ireelevant. Truly, the ACU is one issue, whereas MARPAT is two. I think having two issues for drastically different environments is, obviously, superior.

I would disagree. For one thing, Multicam works better in just about any environment with a single pattern than MARPAT does with either of its patterns. A second thing, soldiers currently in Iraq are going from areas of desert that has mostly brown colors, to fields of reeds with green, to urban conditions with brown and grey, all colors that the single ACU pattern has that both MARPAT patterns couldn't compensate for. Now, I would agree with "multiple patterns are superior" if the multicam didn't exist and we were fighting a conflict in a region with a single environment type, but I honestly can't think of a single conflict where that's ever been the case. Desert Storm is probably the closest thing to such a thing; Vietnam had both green and brown environments, as did Korea, as did WWII, etc etc. And the fact that soldiers will need to go from a brown or green environment into an urban setting which has grey-ish tones present in the ACU seems to support the idea that a jungle and desert pattern aren't the best options for an entire conflict.

Kieran Horn,

I hope you enjoy the experience. Thanks for doing your part, regardless of what everyone thinks of our current president, we still need military men to keep the country safe (and you'll be under a new commander-in-chief before your term is up).

Regarding basic training, I was in the AF which has a short and easy basic, but what I did learn was to simply not let the silly things they tell and yell at you get to you. I didn't see anyone broken by the physical stuff, but they couldn't take all the yelling and screaming. Just be ready for it and let it slide off you like iraqi oil

Be sure to drop by here when you get back. Also, basic can get lonely w/out friends and family, so be sure to collect a list of addresses of everyone you know and love and send them letters as soon as you can. It feels good when they write back

Brian