dear earth women

I slept on a concrete floor in a sleeping bag and ate MRE's all week. And I didn't poop once till I got back. But I'm all clean and refreshed now. I'm sitting out by a tree with my netbook and coffee like nothing happened.

On the range, I got to fire an M249 SAW,

an M240 machine gun,

an M203 grenade launcher,

and an AT4 anti-tank rocket.

Those last two were lies. I did get to shoot the grenade launcher, but only with practice grenades that explode Cheeto dust. And I only shot fake AT4 tube. It launches a 9mm tracer round with the same ballistic properties as the rocket.

For each burst with the machine guns, we would say, "Die motherfucker die, get some, release," and release the trigger on "release." That would ensure we fired the right number of rounds per burst. We were actually trained to say "Die little people die, get some, release," because Marines aren't allowed to cuss, but most of us decided to say it the traditional way.

I've got a week left here. It's been good times, so I've been taking pictures of the base and my platoon because I want to capture these memories forever. Look for those a little later.