I shared this story with a friend this morning, but I thought you guys might get a laugh out of it.
Basically, this morning at o-dark 30, several members of my unit and I had "Drown Proofing." This is a class where they teach you what to do if you ever get caught in water and have to wade a long ways to shore, or have to wait for an evac or something.
The uniform was boots, BDUs, and later rucksacks. Events included five-minutes of treading water, two lap swim, dead-man floating," jump off high-dive, hauling each other through the water by the collar, floating with a ruck as the floatation device, using two rucks and a poncho to make a two-person floater, and finally, using your BDU bottoms as a floater.
I did everything and had little trouble, other than just getting worn out! Well, everything except the little BDU-floater trick. You see, what you do is swim out to the deep end, untie your boots and take them off, tie them together again and hang them around your neck, take your belt off and fasten it around your chest, or where ever, unbutton your pants, get them off, button them back together, tie the ankles together, swing the thing over your head to trap air in it, and then pull it all over your head and float with it....
Yeah, I nearly drowned while trying it. Me of all people! I, who pride myself on being able to go from decent to Jay-bird in 5.2 seconds, nearly drowned trying to take my pants off. Oh, how the mighty have fallen! I finally got it all done and lay there floating in my hard-earned floaty, sputtering and coughing, and thinking... "When my wife hears about this, I'll never hear the end of it."
Well, my friends. She's laughing her butt off, so you might as well get a chuckle too. This one's for you, so enjoy!
By-the-way, second funny thing was that apparently beer is NOT allowed at these events. I thought that since alcohol is lighter than water, the more beer you had in you, the easier it would be to float. No brainer, right? Apparently there's an Army Regulation that prohibits it.
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