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.

Tryin' Chorizo

Well, today was the day. I bought all the ingredients and gave it a shot.

First, thank you to Habanero Smoker for

the

recipe. Here it is for easy reference, and will be explained in detail later:

Basque Chorizo

Ingredients:

• 2 1/2 lbs. pork shoulder
• 1/2 lbs. beef plate or fatty chuck (you could also use skirt of flank steak)
• 1/2 Cup sweet Spanish or Hungarian paprika
• *1/4 Cup dried New Mexico (Anhiem) chile puree
• 1/4 Cup minced garlic
• 3 Tbsp dry red wine
• 4 tsp kosher salt
• 2 tsp sugar
• 2 tsp coarsely ground black pepperPinch of ground cloves

++1 tsp pink salt dissolved in ¼ cup water (optional)
prepared medium hog casings (if you are going to stuff).
Directions:Grind pork and beef through a 3/8” plate.

In large bowl combine ground meat with paprika, chile puree, garlic wine, salt, sugar, black pepper, and cloves. (I generally will mix the meat with the spices prior to grinding).

++Add curing salt if you are planning to smoke.Mix well, kneading the meat and spices until everything is thoroughly mixed. (I like to refrigerate the mixture overnight to allow the spices and pink salt distribute more evenly).
If stuffing your can form into rings, or 10 inch lengths, or 6 inch lengths.
*Chile Puree:In a

small bowl, soak two dried New Mexico chiles in enough

boiling water to cover them; for 10 minutes. Drain and reserve water. Remove stems and seeds and puree the chiles in a food processor, adding a teaspoon of the reserved soaking water.

My deepest apologies to all the Basque who read this and scoff at my attempt and compromises and shortcuts. I'm learning, and I don't have access to all the top-notch homeland ingredients.

So hopefully it tastes good! Funny thing...I've never even had chorizo to begin with, so I'm not sure I'll know if it's good or not... But anyway, it was fun to try something new.

To start:

Basically it goes like this - Find all ingredients, mix, cook, eat. Pretty simple.

My shopping trip yielded the following:

3lbs ground pork (I don't have a meat grinder that I know of...and it's easier)

1lb ground beef (same as the pork)

1 jar of regular Paprika (I don't know if it's different than sweet Spanish...)

1 bag of Anaheim chiles (thank god the name was on the bag)

1 jar minced garlic

1 bottle Lambrusco red wine (probably could have used cooking wine or maybe found at least a Spanish wine...Italian is close, right?)

1 box Kosher

salt (had to ask a lady about this...never heard of it before)

It may not be the most authentic version of chorizo, but at least the ingredients look professional once put in little bowls!

Step 1. Measure out ingredients

Start the water to get it boiling for the chile puree. While waiting, measure out the rest of the ingredients. I had to grind out the 2 tsp of pepper, so if you have pre-ground pepper, you will save yourself some time and a sore arm.

The 1/4 cup Paprika was the entire jar.

Alright, now that the water is boiling, put a couple of chiles in a bowl and pour the bowling water on them, enough to cover them. The goal is to reconstitute them to allow for puree. Since they tend to float, I put a couple of spoons on them to weigh them down.

After 10 minutes, they should be plenty pliable. Take

them out of the water, but don't throw the water out! Slice off the stems and slice them in halves or quarters lengthwise to get all the seeds out. Don't miss any, or one of your eaters will get a nasty spicy surprise!

Place the cleaned peppers in your food processor and puree away!

Once you have all of

your ingredients, move on to step 2.

Step 2: Mix it up!

Literally...take everything, put it in a bowl, and start kneading the meat until the spices are all even. That's it.

If you're really hardcore into it, and have access to sausage casings, I'd love to hear how it went from here. I put the mix in the fridge and will let it sit overnight. I'll cook some up with some noodles or make into patties for hamburgers. It's basically pre-flavored meat now... so the sky seems the limit! More to follow when I actually TASTE this creation of mine.

Update:
I mixed up the chorizo with some noodles. It is good! The paprika is definitely the most dominate flavor, so you may want to back off the amount a little bit to ease it up, or maybe just find the Spanish sweet paprika, which could make all the difference.

Happy cooking!

Diving into Heritage

I had a little time on my hands today, so I was searching into more about my Basque heritage. I'm pretty excited to be part of such a small and exclusive community. The Basque language itself is it's own entity, not some derivative of Spanish. I am looking forward to trying out some Basque recipes for dessert and some main dishes. I will post those at the conclusion of my attempts. In the meantime, I found a few good sites that you might like to check out as well.

Probably my favorite for beginners (like me!) so far, a site from Boise, Idaho, arguably the Basque capital of the United States. A lot of good information, especially with pronunciations, which will certainly help me at least recognize some things, such as what drink or food I have in my hands. The festival they

mention is discussed here. The schedule looks like a lot of fun!

Jaialdi 2010 Schedule of Events

The official schedule of events for Jaialdi is:

• 5-11 p.m. July 27 and July 28: “Welcome t

o Jaialdi” events on the Basque Block. Featuring food, drink and strolling musicians. No admission fee.

• 7-9 p.m. July 28. Basque Culture Conference. Egyptian Theatre. Free. “Eusk

al Herria Mugaz Gaindi” will be attended by prominent world experts in Basque immigration. Hosted by the Basque Studies Center at Boise State Univers

ity.

• 7 p.m. July 29: Sports Night, Qwest Arena.

$12. Tickets through qwestarenaidaho.com. Three weight lifters from Euskal Herria will be lifting cylinders weighi

ng 250-400 pounds and balls weighing

250 pounds. Three wood choppers from the region will compete against each other, and 20 farm sports

competitors will participate in feats of strength such as throwing bales of hay, lifting wagons and carrying milk cans.

• Noon-6 p.m. July 30: “Basqueing on the Block,” Basque Block. Featuring food, drink, strolling musicians and a cha

nce to visit with old friends and new acquaintances. No admission fee.

• 7 p.m. July 30: “Festa’ra,”

Morrison Center on the Boise State University campus. Tickets through idahotickets.com. This performance will feature two dance groups from the Basque Count

ry, the Oinkari Basque Dancers, bertzolariak and an interpretive performance by the Trey McIntyre project.

• 10 a.m.-6 p.m. July 31: “Basqueing at the Fairgrounds,” Expo Idaho. Tickets at the door. Saturday’s events will feature more than 36 dance groups from six

Western states on two indoor stages. Vendors with unique novelties, souvenirs and clothing will set up shop in the air-conditioned portion of the Expo building. Food and

drink will be available, along with sports events near the outdoor fountain. Sheep wagons will be on display.

• 7 p.m. July 31: Mass, St. John’s Cathedral. No admission charge. A traditional San Inazio Mas

s will be celebrated in Basque and will feature the Oñati Dancers,

who will perform on the St. John’s altar with the Oinkari Dancers.

• 9 p.m.-1:30 a.m. July 31: Street Dance, Expo Idaho Fairgrounds. Tickets at the door. Featuring

music by Amuma Says No and other groups from both the Basque Country and Boise.

• 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Aug. 1:

“Basqueing at the Fairgrounds,” Expo Idaho. Tickets at the door. Featuring more dancing, weight lifting, vendors and food booths

This little blurb has some interesting recipes, specifically mentioning Txakoli wine (first time I've seen that...would love to try it!) and Basque cake.

A wealth of current events information is at the freebasque.com website, as well as free downloads of Basque fonts!

And finally, arguably the best overall informative Basque site. Lists of restaurants, recipes, folklore...amazing! I plan to search a lot of that site and I'll get back to you. The recipes will be the most interesting challenge.

Opening Salvo

Every four years or so, the Basque Festival returns to Wyoming. My dad's family is from Wyoming, and so for the first time about three years ago, I went with my parents to celebrate what is half of my heritage. It was awesome. My brother couldn't be there because he was deployed with the Marines, but before he left, we both had our family crest (Basque, of course) tattoo'd on our right shoulder. It had nothing to do with the festival, and everything to do with our bond as family, but it was still awesome to have with all the family there. We ate, we drank, we danced, we watched sheep dog demonstrations and we slept in a sheep wagon. I'll try to post some pictures when I get a chance. Next summer is the next festival, and I'm excited my brother and wife get to go. What is Basque?

HOWEVER....this blog is not all about Basque. It is more about my random happenings and reviews and thoughts put on digits for your visual digestion. Please feel free to comment or give your Basque shout out! Also, check out my wife's blog or her etsy shop. Both are awesome!