Saturday, June 4, 2011

Annual Training Begins Today

Yesterday we had a preliminary day--meetings about the coming two weeks of annual training.

I was on a Machine Gun range today.  I went to take pictures and got to fire 300 rounds with an M240B 7.62mm that is the standard weapon for door guns in Blackhawk and Chinook helicopters.  The range has pop-up targets from 300 to 800 meters.  I shot 100 rounds in one rotation and 200 in the 2nd rotation.  Each time I had a chance to hit the 800-meter targets and did not knock them down, just kicked up some dust.  I knocked down the targets at every other distance.  It's a loto of fun to shoot on a range with pop-up targets.

Next week we will have aerial gunnery.  Don't know if I will have a chance to shoot a door gun from a helicopter, but should get good pictures.

"Blindness" by Jose Saramago--terrifying look at society falling apart

  Blindness  reached out and grabbed me from the first page.  A very ordinary scene of cars waiting for a traffic introduces the horror to c...