What Life Is AllAabout

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It's annual training time so I have been away for most of this week. I was allowed to come home for the night because I have an important appointment tomorrow morning.

I took my camera along with me. I normally try to remember to bring a small digital camera, however I gave Sara my small digital camera after some girl at school purposely destroyed Sara's camera ( another story of another day). So this time I took my real camera. I wanted to take a lot of photos over the two weeks, but that hasn't seemed to happen. Partly I was so busy trying to qualify with my M-16.

We drove something like 6 hours to get to this place to qualify with our weapons. The day we arrive we hear lots of rumors that things are not going well at the rang, but range control had done some work so maybe it would be ok when we qualified.

I went to he zero range and was spot on with my zero. I was happy and thinking that maybe the range was gonna be ok. Turns out that the pop up range wasn't working so well. I went out on the first try and noticed that some of my targets where not even popping up, so when those didn't pop up I fired at my neighbors targets. Why not help him out if I wasn't getting to fire at my own targets. Didn't really do either of us any good. I know I missed a couple of targets but not as many as the range machine showed.

So I went on the second try and I counted that I had hit about 28 or 29 targets but hey said I only hit 14!!!! No Way! I have never not qualified so I went for a 3rd and final try. There was a lot of people who had not qualified and where having the same complaints as me. This time they sent some one with each shooter to count our hits. The guy who went with me said he was positive that I hit 27 targets, possibly more. He counted 23 that fell, 3 or 4 that I hit but the target shook but never fell, and 3 that he thought I hit but he was not sure. So I for sure hit at least 27 targets, the range machine said I hit 22, ONE SHORT OF QUALIFICATION!

We didn't have time for another try but I am not in this boat alone there are a lot of people who did not qualify, some of the senior people who have never in 20 or more years not qualified left the range with lower scores than mine. I am not sure what the unit will do, if they can use the scores that our spotters counted or if there is a possible make up fire at some other range.

Every since we got back to the unit its been one thing after another and I keep thinking that I am not taking any photos but I haven't had time or opportunity.

I posted a few above just because I like them really. There is my Zero target, I actually had 2 spots on there where I hit the same hole twice.

There is a photo of a bird, this bird was in the motor pool where we park our vehicles. I was walking up to where my unit was gathering up for formation and this bird's feather's are standing on end, the bird is dancing and squawking and charging at me. My fried Misty said she thought it was trying to have a mating dance with me. Turns out the bird has an egg in my path way and she isn't happy that I am come so close. I grabbed the camera and took a couple photos, but by then she was less mad and her feathers where not standing on end as much, in this photo its just her tail that is fanned out. She was a pretty bird to bad she wasn't very friendly.

There is also a photo of a couple of people cleaning up one of the Hummers. They lifted the end of the Hummer with one of the trucks so that they could power wash the underneath.

Hopefully I will get a few more photos in the next week. On Monday Stephen and Katie (Sara and Shelby if they are home) are coming to the unit for a family day/ open house where we should get a few good photos. Can't wait really because Stephen has had very little interaction with my unit. I think the more the family is involved the better so I love these events where the family get to come and be part of it all.