Day 3 began at 5:30am on Valentine's day with the pinging sound of raindrops impacting the rainfly of the tent I was so grateful to have. I had an instantaneous flashback to the summer of 2005 in Quantico, VA when I wasn't as lucky. It was June and we were in the field doing live-fire squad attacks. We hit the rack, a sleeping bag in a "gore-tex" bag on a foam mat under the stars, after our final night attack at about 1am. At about 1:30am, it started raining. This is when I found out that the Corps version and my version of gore-tex is very different. After about two hours of a good steady northern Virginia rain, I was shivering in a three inch puddle of water in my sleeping bag, listening to the sound of raindrops impact my "gore-tex" bag. Either way, there's a nice saying in the infantry, "if it ain't raining, we ain't training." None of us know what that means, because we've done loads of training without it raining; either way, that was said a time or two.
We quickly set about our morning routine and moved to the days start point with rain hitting the windshield the entire drive. With a quick look at one another, we all pretty much said, "at least we aren't being shot at" and began taking the first steps of the 17.8 miles facing us on Day 3. The rain yielded quickly, but was followed by chilling 10-15 mph winds - which failed in stopping us, if that was their intent. We made it to the days stop point and moved to camp at New Brighten Beach, where we comensed to drying out the gear and cooking a hot meal, readying ourselves for the miles in front of us.
Thomas Muir
OUCH
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