Why yes Sgt. I would LOVE to spend the week cleaning my M16....

One of the true joys of being in the Army is the whole "HURRY UP AND WAIT" and this is true day in and day out. 

I am in a Unit that is going to be disbanding in the new year, so with that being said there is a lot of things that must happen at many levels almost all of them don't involve me!!  But a few do and when they do well its the next coming of the almighty (whom ever you believe in).  So this week should be no different, but with a little twist because after all we are the Mighty Shoremasters!!

So I mentioned before, with the Unit disbanding we are having to do things such as make sure the millions of papers that they keep on us is up to date, we haven't moved, changed phone numbers or even identities, those who are in or have loved ones in can understand this.  So I have put down my name rank and social so many times that its all auto pilot now, then we got to bring in EVERY SINGLE PIECE OF GEAR ever issued to us for a layout (we literally laid it all out on the ground, yep pretty deep stuff there!) again this was all to check that little square on a piece of paper, god bless America and the trees we cut down!!

So while our Sgt's are off doing important stuff (see square comment above) we are left with time on our hands, what better way to fill than to clean weapons!!!  WAHOO AND EUREKA!! I love cleaning weapons, nothing like mindless conversations, smell of engine cleaner and the endless sea of white pipe cleaners and q tips to pass a week by!!  If you ask me, this sounds like paradise!!  Okay enough of the sarcasm....so we set about the task of cleaning our weapons. 

Now, not to take away from the importance of this, weapons cleaning is very important for a soldier.  We need to have a clean weapon so that when the time comes for us to fire it, the weapon will be working at its full potential because having a misfire or even a jam is never a good thing and can be very stressful. I am even going to break out into my old SPORTS. 

• SLAP THE MAGAZINE
• PULL THE CHARGING HANDLE
• OBSERVE THE OBJECTION PORT
• RELEASE THE ACTION
• TAP THE FORWARD ASSIST.

(Yep I took it old school there, we are talking BCT!!)  But anyhow, we don't want anything but smooth firing when need to use the weapon.  So like I said, I don't mind cleaning my weapon!! 

Well we have been cleaning our weapons for 3 days now, I have gotten the ole girl about as clean as I can get her, lets be real here, she isn't going to be spotless unless a) J comes to work and cleans her {this isn't happening} or b) she is dipped in acid and all the dirt is eaten away!!  Lucy is as clean as she is going to be and patiently waiting till I get to either see her again tomorrow for a nice rub down, or pull her and take her with me to our new Unit!!

So I say YES SGT...LET ME CLEAN MY M16!!