To Hell And Back

I spent the last 3 days in the 5th circle of Hell. Yes, I am aware that circle represents anger (according to Dante's Inferno) and it's completely accurate. I took part in my first field exercise with the 501st ASMC and it made me want to shoot myself. It's a shame we weren't given any rounds, or even blanks for that matter.

It was roughly 110 degrees with 80% humidity. And since God hates me, and I'm in an EVAC platoon once again, I spent my day outside in the blistering heat and humidity carting fake casualties around on litters.

We kept getting hit with mass casualty scenarios. Heaven forbid people get in "accidents" by themselves. No, no. Instead, 5 people fell out of a deer stand and hit their heads and walked to the clinic for medical care.

Who writes these stupid scenarios anyway?

The worst part of being slammed by mass chaos of casualties was that we didn't have anywhere to cool off in between waves of fake injured people. Instead we had this:

We ate there, napped there, hung out there and tried to sleep over night there. The one attempt to stay outside all night resulted in a terrible thunderstorm that ripped our shelter out of the ground and tossed it aside like trash. In the morning, the wreckage looked like a tornado had ran through a trailer park.

There were not any shower facilities available to us, so I was absolutely filthy the whole time. If I had gotten into water, the grease from my hair could have killed dolphins. Everyday was just another layer of sweat and bug spray that coated my skin in a thin film of gross. I wore one uniform over the 3 day exercise which I soaked completely through everyday with sweat. It smelled awful.

I sweat more than I ever did in Iraq. Terrible. Thank you Fort Campbell for making this experience possible.