Air Assault

I had the opportunity to take part in some specialized training for the Army called Air Assault. If you've ever heard of the 101st Screaming Eagles, they are the Air Assault kings.

Basically Air Assault is two things:

One: Sling Loading Operations. If you've seen any load hanging from the bottom of a helicopter, that is a sling load. Used when terrain, distance, or enemy is an obstacle that can be overcome with the tactical use of helicopters.













Two: Fast Rope or Rappelling from a helicopter. The purpose is to come in behind enemy lines low and fast in a helicopter and insert troops without landing. Hence, the fast rope or rappel.











Alright, now that you know the awesomeness that is Air Assault, let me get into the training itself. My training took place at Ft. Knox, Kentucky as a satellite course with instructors from Ft. Campbell, Kentucky. The majority of the class was ROTC cadets or new Lieutenants that have some time between training to attend school. That being said, I was one of maybe ten active duty Soldiers, including a couple of drill sergeants, a Reserve first sergeant, another captain, and a first lieutenant.

*Translation guide*

• Break Off - to reach a point physically where you want to quit, well, moving at all; muscle failure

• Double Time - run (walking is called Quick Time)

• Black Hat/Black Shirt - instructor (they wear black shirts/hats)

• Drop - do pushups

• Flutter kicks - lay on your back; with your legs straight, bring your feet about 6 inches off the ground; begin to alternating kick up and down like swimming; painful

• Mountain climber - pushup position; bring one knee towards your chest; alternate quickly between legs; painful

• Smoked - similar to "break off"; to smoke someone is to break them off; to be smoked, well, sucks

Day 0

If you noticed, the title has "Day 0" not "Day 1". The reason being is that day zero is technically the first day, but it is designed to weed out the unprepared or the weak. They basically break you off and yell at you and make you so physically and mentally tired that you are numb.

I had to be up at 2:15 am.

All of us get what's called a roster number, and that is how we are referred to during the course. As one of the few active duty, I got a low roster number (#3). So they don't call me "Michelena", but "Roster 3".

They called your name and your roster number, and you ran over to one of the black hats, get a piece of tape with your number on it to put on your canteen (yeah, old school canteen), and then you run over to another area for another formation. A couple of things we have to do during the entire course: Run everywhere (also called double-time), and every time your left food hits the ground, you have to say "Air Assault". And by say, I mean yell. Try running and yelling two words every left step. You quickly stop breathing in.

As you run from getting your tape, you round this dark corner and straight into the line of fire. There are several black hats spaced between you and your destination. No matter how fast you are running or yelling "Air Assault," it's a turkey shoot. They yell at you and tell you to get down and do pushups. Air Assault pushups are a little different. Stick your thumbs out and touch them together, like making a "U" shape. That is how your hands are during the pushup. You do ten and get up. Then you run as far as you can before the next black hat yells at you. I was lucky and fast. I only got dropped once. Probably because the guy two steps behind me forgot to say "Air Assault" and got dropped again. I kept running. Take one for the team buddy.
Once we got formed up, we loaded buses and headed to the obstacle course.

The first thing we did off the bus was 200 overhead arm claps. Take your arms and hold them straight out to your sides. Now, keeping your arms straight, bring them over your head until your hands touch above your head, thus the "clap". Bring your arms back to horizontal. That was one. Now do 199 more.

Next, we ran up this hill towards the course and proceeded to get smoked with various physical tortures such as flutter kicks, mountain climbers, and more overhead arm claps. Lots of flutter kicks and overhead arm claps. Lots. Hundreds and hundreds.

 Immediately following, we head to the obstacle course. There are two major obstacles that are physically demanding, and not easy without being smoked first. One is the Weaver, and the other is the Tough One.

Guess which one I got to go to first?  That's right, the Weaver.  Unless you have trouble climbing a rope, this is by far the most challenging.  You get no more than two tries on any obstacle.  So if you fall off, that's one try.  The picture shows those Soldiers going head first.  We had to go sideways up and back down the other side.  Not easy when your arms are shot from doing 500+ overhead arm claps.  Sometimes your arms just don't respond as well as your brain wants them too.  One guy in our group fell off, but luckily got it the second time.  We did pushups while we waited.  Our next obstacle? The Tough One.  You can't see it in the picture, but the first thing you do (and the hardest) is to climb up a rope, then walk across the beams, up the ladder, and then down the cargo net.  If you're tired, as we are at this point, the rope climb can kill you, especially if you don't use technique (i.e. wrapping the rope around your foot to use your legs to help climb).  I'm pretty sure our whole group made it, but a few from the other groups fell by the wayside.  The pictures above are some of the obstacles, but not all of them.  The low crawl got us all muddy, solely because we were so incredibly sweaty (it was 95 degrees and 90% humidity) and we're dragging our face through the dirt.

After the obstacle course, we took off our blouse (jacket) and boots and put on running shoes.  We then ran two miles.  In the heat.  After everything else we've done.  It was the slowest two miles I've ever run.  One or two didn't make it in the 16 minute limit.  I couldn't believe how tired I was.  It was more of a shuffle than a run.  Especially mud caked, sweaty, and dead tired.

Next, we luckily went into an air conditioned classroom where they showed us the packing list layout for the six mile ruck march the next day.  It was very specific and you had to try not to fall asleep.  I'll go into that more on Day 1.  People kept asking really dumb questions.  It drove me nuts.

I was assigned as a platoon leader and they did a quick equipment check.  We had been briefed the day before on exactly what we needed to have for day zero.  One cadet didn't have his belt on.  He got dropped from the course.  Crazy.

We pretty much got released for the day from there.  Since I'm stationed at Ft. Knox, I got to stay at home rather than in the barracks.  That means a shower to myself, a washer and dryer, t.v., a nice bed...

My battle buddy and I went to WalMart on the way home, dirty as all get out, but we needed some stuff for the ruck march the next day.  Funny looks from everyone.  One lady was like "Had a fun day?" Nice.

Day 1....here we come. Minus 14.