Whenever I’m lucky enough to catch up with friends and family, they always ask, “So! How’re the boys??”   So!  Here’s Kyle’s update on his own “Next Chapter!”

LEADERS FORGE IS BRO FORGE

Hi, my name is Kyle, Erin’s other son that goes on long walks in the Georgia woods and traded a baseball for smoke grenades. Currently I’m at the Infantry Basic Officers Leaders Course (IBOLC) at Ft. Benning, GA, learning about small unit tactics and how to lead a platoon of infantrymen into close combat. For those of you who don’t know what infantry is, Saving Private Ryan, We Were Soldiers, Black Hawk Down… pretty much the job your mom tells you to not go for because you go for months without a real bed, weeks without real food and a shower, days without sleep, and on top of that you have to be trained and forged in the most austere conditions in order to even be qualified to then take all of this training and get sent to a third world country to save the day. So Mom, sorry that I picked this instead of the Logistics or Pilot job the Army had lined up for me!

Here at Infantry School we go to the field (essentially camping without a tent) for 9 of the 17 weeks we are here. This last week I completed the final field problem, which is 9 days of missions culminating with a 16-mile ruck march with an average of 2 hours of sleep (on and off each night). As a platoon-sized element, the main missions we ran by ourselves were raids on small outposts or ambushing small units. As the week goes on, you begin to work as a much larger company sized unit (4 platoons, roughly 150 soldiers), and set up defenses where we dig holes for 48 hours — and fill sand bags in order to build bunkers to fight off incoming attackers. Throughout this whole process, you’re only getting 1-2 hours of sleep and not a lot of time to eat your MREs. Now, all of the stuff that I’ve explained up until this point is very surface and all stuff you could learn about watching the history channel or military channel.  What I’m going to describe from here is the stuff that is so much deeper than that.

THE BALLAD OF THE SEXY SIX

As you can see in some of the pictures, there are several with 6 of us on a hill covered in dirt, our skin 3 shades darker than normal and hair that is anything but regulated. IBOLC is a very intensive course to the point that it is one of the only Army initial entry trainings that actually “recycles” individuals to the beginning of the course for failing to meet the standards. My squad was hit the hardest with recycles to the point that after 17 weeks, out of an original 10-man squad, there were 6 more recycles inserted over the course of IBOLC and only 6 of US remained. Because there were only 6 of us that were consistent, we called ourselves the Sexy 6.

In order to give some of the best friends their fair due, I will give them brief overviews. The Bald guy on the left is Zach “Old Bones” Trevathan, an avid snow boarder from Mexico who began to experience balding at the age of 10. Probably the most dependable person in the squad, he completely controlled Bravo Team through the entirety of the course. Second from the left is Kyle “Corbino” Corbin, a kid who worked at an organic food magazine and can man a machine gun better than anybody in my platoon. Next to Corbin (on the right) is Jack Wilson, a former Special Teams player for the Washington State Cougars. By far the best 2Lt in our squad, he led us a bunch through warrior forge — and he loves his hometown of Spokane and a good cup of coffee (“Spokane…now that’s God’s Country,” is one of Jack’s favorite phrases). Fourth from the left is Robert E. Lee, a kid from DC raised by two Senior Enlisted Marines, this idiot turned down a ride to Stanford Law in order to lead Paratroopers in the 82^nd Airborne.  Watch out for this kid — one day he will be running the Army. Second from the right is myself.  All the way on the right is Raychev, our international officer, a veteran from Bulgaria with a penchant for Marlboro Golds who could literally carry anything for days if asked. We were the originals, and after 17 weeks together in the most intimate of settings, we know each other better than anybody we know back home.

VEHICLES ARE FOR ARMOR, COLD WATER IS FOR POGs, and the 6^th Principle of Patrolling

As you can see in the picture that my mom started the post with, I’m on a road in full kit without my ACH (Army Combat Helmet) looking like a straight G. This was during our 16-mile road march as I was placing my team during a resupply point (where we get more water).  Most of the time, the water that we get is warm at best from sitting in a tank all day.  This resupply point, however, was from the Armor (tanks) Basic Course and was Ice Cold!  All the comforts the tankers get that we don’t — so we ended up calling it POG (Personnel other than Grunt) Water because it was too nice to be consumed. Also, most of us were rocking some wicked flow (great hair)!  At Ranger School there are 5 principles of Patrolling, but as hard chargers we added a 6^th:  Always look cool on the battlefield, it “instills confidence in your soldiers and scares terrorists.”

The last point made is that gross trash ‘stache some of us had going. Well, when you’re in the field, you can get away with some stuff, so some of us grew mustaches to establish dominance as great infantry officers.

And a last closing note contributed by Kyle’s wife, Bow, on their homecoming:

They are finally home from being in the field for 9 days and all they wanted was a hot cup of coffee and to play with their new Legos!