Day Seventeen

WHAT AN AMAZING MORNING!! Today was WELPS (NO idea what that stands for…), the first military activity in which I have been able to participate.

We woke up at 0430 and formed up downstairs by 0450. We marched to our Flight Room (where our flight has all of our classes – it’s our “safe place”) for a breakfast of MREs. I took the opportunity to daven quickly – may have been a bit early, but it was the only time before Chatzos… I then had a delicious breakfast of Cheese Tortellini and Pinto Beans along with a cup of coffee. As is usually the case in the military, we rushed downstairs at 0530… just to form up and wait for 30 minutes for the buses to arrive.

We got the WELPS field, and after forming up again, we fell out to find our Flt/CC. WELPS is a leadership exercise wherein 6-8 people participate (one assigned as leader, one as asst leader, and the rest are the team), there is a timekeeper, three observers (who are taking notes on how the leader, the asst leader, and the team all operate) and safeties, whose job it is to watch for heat exhaustion and penalties. I was a participant in the first one. Using compasses we had to navigate to four check points. Each coordinate sheet had two possible coordinates, depending on how you answered a question on something we studied – get the answer right, and you were heading in the right direction (assuming you could read your compass). Get it wrong, and you were up a creek. At each successfully acquired checkpoint we were given the coordinates for the next one. Our mission was to get to the fourth checkpoint and spell out FH 11 for the incoming helicopter to find us. We were given 6 2x4s and 4 cinder blocks. Oh – and we were told that between stops 2 and 3, there would be enemy snipers and patrols, so we had to stay down. Did I forget to mention that we could step on a mine and lose our legs? All of these, of course, were simulated by the Flt/CC suddenly yelling, “BAAM! Mortar! You, you and you are incapacitated!” or “Sniper Fire! You were just hit in the leg and can’t use your left foot!”

It was amazing – shooting an azimuth with the compass, crawling through the grass to the check points… unfortunately, we didn’t fulfill the mission.

For the second one, I was an observer. My job was to watch the team’s interactions, and report during the debriefing. The team successfully negotiated that mission, carrying a garbage can of “special liquid” through the check points, and then finding a bomb and placing it carefully in to the liquid in a manner that it would not touch the sides of the garbage can, and then get it to the final check point. Well done.

I participated in the third one as well (clearly, the Major was making up for the fact that I hadn’t participated in either of the two previous outdoor events, Project X or the Assault Course), once again, as a participant. Our job was to transfer ammunition and medicine to a place where they would be picked up by a convoy. We were doing so well that on one of the last ammo runs, I was “blown up” by a “mortar,” leaving me legless. I started rolling to the check point, a la Monty Python (which got quite the response), but it was taking too long, so the last two people standing grabbed me by the arms and pulled me to the check point, belly down. Not cool. But we completed the mission!

I was the Asst Leader for the fourth one. Four of our eight person team were "unconscious" and we had to carry them to the check point. However, as we were taking the last two, one of my team was shot in the leg, and the other developed PTSD, leaving me and a girl to get the three of them there. We did it in time, but when we said, “Mission Accomplished” he said, keep going. We racked our brains trying to figure out what we were missing. Finally the whistle blew, and he said, “The proper verbiage is ‘Mission Completed’” CHEAP!!!!!!

It was amazing. I wish I could say the same for the rest of the day. After lunch we had four hours of lectures that were enough to kill a man. And now I am doing homework. Today is the official half-way point in the program… The feeling is bittersweet.