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In the Army we really have two modes: We have a garrison mode, and then we have a deployment mode. Whenever it’s in garrison, that’s when it’s at its home station, wherever you are across the country, going home at night to your apartment, whatever. And you’re just in sort of a training mode getting ready for whatever is coming up, whether it’s a deployment overseas to Afghanistan and Iraq or maybe a deployment purely for training or to any other country around the world. When you’re in garrison, your day normally begins with a formation at about 6:30 in the morning, and you’ll show up. You’ll make sure that you’re there often a half hour early, get in by about 6 a.m., sometimes as late as 6:15. And then you wander out to formation in your physical training uniform, which is seasonal, but generally shorts and a t-shirt. 6:30 is formation. They take role call; they take attendance, so to speak. After the reports are received and we get accountability for all the people in our unit, then you break off and then you do PT. And our Special Forces team, we can do some pretty fun stuff. We might take mountain bikes and go riding on mountain bikes. We might go do an obstacle course, might go running, might throw rock stacks on our backs and run for a dozen miles or so, might go to the pool and swim. Depending on what kind of a team you’re on, you might even do some diving, for example. PT varies in times. Normally it’s from about 6:30 to 8, 8:30. Sometimes PT could take half the morning if you’re trying to get something accomplished very specific. Once PT is done, you shower, you have breakfast. Then you’ll go in your daily activities. If it’s a range day, you’ll pack up your vehicles, throw all the equipment on. You’ll drive out to a range, open up the range, and you might shoot all day. Take a break for lunch, continue shooting, then close down the range. By then, you’re looking at maybe 5, 6:00 in the evening, unless you’re trying to do some night firing, in which case you’ll take another break for dinner. Then you’ll pull out your night vision goggles. Then you’ll continue shooting at the range until you’re done. And those days at the range could last to 10, 11:00 at night. Close down the range, clean up, return to the team room. You might clean your weapons that night or you might put them away and then you’ll clean them the next day. Then the next day just the same thing over again…get up, show up for PT formation, and move on. When you’re under deployment, it’s a totally different schedule. Sometimes we joke that we get more sleep on deployments than we do when we’re actually in garrison, which is always kind of funny to admit. But on a deployment, it just depends on what you’re doing. On a deployment, you might be conducting combat operations for days straight with very little sleep, and then you’re in a recovery mode where you’re cleaning weapons, you’re doing maintenance on equipment. Doing training where you can, but it could be a pretty slow day. That cliché about, you know, days of monotony and hours of chaos and intensity is definitely correct. I mean, a lot depends on the mission that you have. I’ve had friends who are on continuous operations for a month straight. Then I’ve had other friends who don’t do much for a month, and then they have two days of just pretty insane missions, where they’re definitely staying busy. At the end of about, you know, six to eight months, depending on the deployment…deployments could last a few weeks, deployments can last a year…it just depends what you’re leaving for, where you are. You’ll return home. You’ll have what we call a recovery period where you unpack all your equipment, get everything set in your team room. Then often we have blocks that last several weeks, and then you go back into a training cycling garrison.
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