Second Weekend of Basic Training

After receiving my full kit of gear and clothing at my unit and having a weekend off, my basic training resumed.  The heat was turned up a bit on this second weekend of training.  Right after coming in on Friday night, we had a physical training session which consisted of various exercises, most of them focusing on the legs.  It was quite painful for me as I had gone to the gym earlier that day and had worked out my legs.  The innumerable squats and lunges we had to do that night were grueling.  That weekend, I volunteered to be my section's senior.  That means that throughout the weekend, I was to have increased responsibilities such as communicating and insuring the completion of requests from the staff.  One of my tasks consisted of writing a fire picket roster.  When the instructors saw my list, they judged my handwriting to be so bad that the whole class had to do push-ups.  After that, I had other people transcribe my notes to the staff.

Before going to bed, we had some time to get our kit ready for the following morning inspection.  We usually joke around a bit when we have "almost-free" time like this.  A guy in my section took a picture of another, modified it with an app on his phone and, wanting to send it to another section member, mistakenly sent it to a member of the course staff!  This was both hilarious and scary (because of the potential fallout).  [The following week, the recruit who sent the picture was "written up" and had to write a 250-word essay on ranks and discipline.]

Picture mistakenly sent

This time, we had cots to sleep in.  However, I didn't get to use mine too much on the first night because I was assigned "fire picket" duty and had to stay awake as a sentry.  As a result, I only went to bed at 3:30 am.  Then, at 4:00 am, the idiot in my section woke me up to know who he should wake up to replace him as fire picket sentry while it was completely clear who it should be.  In fact, it was so clear that even he managed to figure it out (only seconds after asking me).  Then, at 5:00 am, it was time to wake up for the day.

At 5:30, we went out on a walk with our combat uniforms, tactical vests and helmets on.  This was our first so-called "forced march".  We will have many until we get to one in which we'll have to carry 25.4 kg (just short of 60 lbs) of equipment over 13 km under two hours and 24 minutes.  This weekend's march was peppered with some other exercises.  I was already hungry the night before because of all the exercise.  The march made me even hungrier.  We came back around 6:30 and had to shower and get ready for breakfast at 7:00.  We all ate like ogres.  At 7:30, we had a kit inspection and got yelled at until past 8:00.  As section senior, I had to note down the deficiencies of my section's members so that they be addressed in the future and tracked by the instructors.  The rest of the day, we did some marching drill and learned about the administrative and disciplinary measures that can be taken to address behavior and performance issues with members of the Canadian Forces.  We also learned how to properly use many of our kits items such as rucksacks and sleeping bags.  Then we got basics about Canadian military law and how to treat / be treated as prisoners of wars.

The next morning, we had a physical training session outside, which consisted mostly of torturing our already sore legs.  For 40 minutes, we ran up and down stairs, hopped up stairs, did stationary wall squats (not pleasant), stationary leg raises and a plethora of other exercises.  Then, back in the armoury, we stretched and did some yoga-esque cooling off.  Following breakfast, we did the most complicated marching drill session to date and then moved on to learning more about the C7 rifle.  Before lunch, we were told that we weren't fast enough and that we were wasting the staff's time.  As punishment, we had to eat on the floor on our bellies with our tactical vests and helmets on, facing away from each other.  Usually meals are some of the most fun parts of the weekend.  This one wasn't.  We finished the day learning more C7 material (how to clean the rifle, how to adjust the scope, how to load/unload magazine and so on).  Throughout the day, we felt pain in our midsection from all the planking and stationary leg raises as well as in our quadriceps.