I cannot say thank you enough to all of the men and women serving in the military. I hope you forever get the respect and honor you so deserve.I am absolutely positive that I would not fit in on a military base. I am a super wimp and didn’t really know just how wimpy until my recent trip to Camp Atterbury.
I am very grateful to Master Sgt. Scott Hardesty for giving me a tour of the base and a tiny glimpse of the extraordinary training that goes on at Atterbury.
What I found most fascinating about the tour was that Atterbury is the only base in the country with sniper training for the U.S. Navy Seals. The targets for sniper training are more than a mile away from the shooters.
I also learned a little history on the tour:
Camp Atterbury opened in 1942 on 40,000 acres of farmland purchased from farmers in Bartholomew, Johnson and Brown counties. When opened it could house up to 30,000 men. The post was named for Hoosier Brigadier General William Wallace Atterbury.
After my tour I had the awesome opportunity to participate in a simulation weapons training. I first suited up in the entire uniform: pants, T-shirt, jacket, boots, gloves, helmet, goggles and bullet-proof vest. It was hard enough to move around in all of that (it was hot and heavy) and I was supposed to be able to shoot a gun accurately? I already knew I wasn’t going to be proud of my performance.The indoor shooting range was like nothing I had ever seen before. It was like a video game on steroids. The screen went across the entire wall and the guns weren’t made of plastic. These were the real thing. While they didn’t shoot real bullets, they were connected to carbon dioxide hoses that gave them the same kick they would have in the real world.
Here is the list of weapons I shot:
> M4 Carbine.
> MK19 (grenade launcher).
> 50cal (50 caliber).
> 240 Bravo (60 caliber machine gun).
> 249 SAW (squad automatic weapon).
All of you weapon fanatics can look those up online to get more details, but they were pretty huge and extremely powerful. In fact, the only one I could actually hold was the M4, the others were too heavy for me to use proper form.
The folks at Atterbury gave me plenty of tries, but sadly I don’t think I hit even one target. How embarrassing.
Even though I failed miserably, this was a great experience. I now know how tough these guys and gals really are, well at least when it comes to firing weapons. Maybe I will go back another time to embarrass myself on the physical training course.
On the web: campatterbury.org and indianamilitary.org.
