Box jump 20
KB snatch 15
Backward sled pull 50 meters
Ropes gone wild 15/15/15

Box jump 15
KB snatch 12
Backward sled pull 40 meters
Ropes gone wild 15/15/15

Box jump 10
KB snatch 10
Backward sled pull 30 meters
Ropes gone wild 10/10/10

Box jump 5
KB snatch 5
Backward sled pull 20 meters
Ropes gone wild 5/5/5

Time to beat 13:16
Middle of the pack 15:40
Last man 19:36

Read the full story here with some hilarious comments at the end

1) Fobgeneration. It takes 9 seconds from the time you die in Call of Duty until you regenerate. Most people waste that time sitting in a chair getting fatter. You can maximize it for an optimal workout. As soon as death is imminent, shift your weight out of your chair into a sprinters posture and push off. The chair spring will give you the extra lift you need to get up to speed quickly. Sprint to the fridge and slide on one knee as you throw the door open behind you with your non-dominant hand. Simultaneously, reach for a Red Bull with your non-dominant hand and use the whip of your slide to both close the door and pull yourself up. Sprint back. Should you encounter an obstacle be prepared to do a combat roll over it, maintaining the Red Bull in a safe position. Pop up and continue. Hurdle any chairs in your path. As you approach your chair, begin to turn your body 180 degrees so that you slide into your chair while opening your Red Bull. The chair will bounce off the adjoining wall or desk and the recoil will return you to playing position. Gain positive control over your remote control. You just completed one Fobgeneration.

2) Fobsit. Often times when sitting in your office on the FOB the stress gets the better of you and you just need to get in a 4-5 hour nap. A newb Fobbit will get caught by “the man” during this exercise, but a wiley veteran knows the importance of keeping his or head on a swivel and executing a flawless Fobsit. First, ensure you are not facing the door as you place your legs up on the desk and your hand cradles your keg-pack. Next, pretend your boss just came through the door. Flex your ab so your knees fire into your stomach while you throw your hands forward towards the keyboard. Your knees will bounce off your stomach and fall to the ground, forcing your hands forward and into perfect typing position. You’ve just completed one Fobsit.

3) Fobstralian Crawl or Reverse Swim Technique. This technique is similar to the one you may have seen in football. With the fast food restaurants coming back to the FOBs you need to have your game face on and beat the suckers that don’t realize that second Big Mac is first loser. With your near hand, trap the shoulder of the Fobbit in front of you (note, make sure it isn’t a grunt coming out of sector) while your far hand swims in an overhand motion past the shoulder. Next, push off from your food gathering nemesis and propel yourself past him, directly into the calorie bomb you so richly deserve. Mike Charlie my friends. Mike Charlie.

Fobstralian Crawl, part 1

Fobstralian Crawl, part 2

Fobstralian Crawl, part 3

Fobstralian Crawl, part 4

The Filthy 50:

Fifty repetitions of each exercise for time of:
Wall Ball (20 pound ball)
Pull-ups
Push-ups
Box jumps
Sledge hammer slams
Burpees
Air squats
Kettlebell swings

Time to beat 14:45
Middle of the pack 17:30
Last man 28:04

Whomever continually passes gas in my row of office cubicles, please stop. It’s not only impolite, but makes us less efficient since we have to vacate the area for a short period of time while your noxious fumes are slowly evacuated through the building’s ventilation system. It’s rude and distasteful, so please don’t do it anymore.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I’m not sure who keeps doing it, but they need to be blanket partied. That’s how we’d handle it back in the Army. The last thing I want to smell is the air that was recently inside someone’s colon unless they ate potpourri for breakfast and washed it down with a vanilla bean frappuccino before crop dusting our row. That would smell pretty sweet, even after intestinal processing, don’t you think?

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
I’m not sure that eating air freshener would help with this problem, nor would drinking coffee since this person probably already does (don’t we all? LOL). I also don’t think blanket partying is the right answer, though I admit I’m not really sure what it means. But it sounds scary. This person just needs to stop.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I don’t think I just heard you laugh out loud since you’re only three cubes away from me. Working in such close proximity to each other is like being on an airplane-it’s very easy to get into everyone else’s business (and easy to smell each other’s business too) LOL (did you hear me actually laugh out loud just now?).
Blanket parties were the vigilante justice that kept the Midwest together in the formative days of this country, but if you don’t like that method, how about getting torches, pitchforks, and other farming tools and running the “eau de toilet offender” out of the office like Frankenstein? Would that be politically correct? Or should we just make a false claim of sexual harassment and get them fired the way Peter was run out of here?

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
I don’t think you used “eau de toilet” correctly. That’s French for perfume. And what did you mean by that crack about Peter? You’re being rude, Jim. I just want the smell of man ass around my workplace to cease.

There it is again! Whomever keeps doing it just did it again! I didn’t hear anything or see anyone walk by because I was typing this. Did you see anyone?

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I didn’t see anything just now except a polar bear pass by the northern window. This crop duster must be a ninja, so I’ll be sure to keep a suspicious eye out for anyone of Japanese descent. What makes you so sure it’s a man by the way? That sounds sexist. Can’t it be woman ass? Don’t females bubble the ghost occasionally? I know it’s not attractive to think about, but women take craps too, right? Unless you’re like a sloth and excrete waste through your skin as a defense mechanism to keep predators away (like Peter). In that case, you would be the perpetrator here, right?

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
This has gone too far. You’re being mean now. I’m easily emotionally traumatized. We have a problem that needs a solution. No one should have to put up with farters in the workplace. Even if this person just went to the stairwell to relieve pressure, that would be better than walking down our row and doing it.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
I’m sorry if I caused you pain (isn’t that an 80’s song?). I sometimes forget how easily civilians are rattled, kind of like this reporter I knew in Afghanistan before he got injured (his name was Peter, ironically). I just want to help find the office flagellator before you’re permanently damaged.
It could be the person who’s releasing these air biscuits has Crones disease and is unable to regulate their bowel movements and is actually pooping his or her adult diaper at their desk. In that case it would be inconsiderate of us to label this person as a farter when in fact they’re sitting in a warm pile of last night’s corn and kielbasa, too ashamed to get up and go clean themselves. In that case they’d be the company pooper. What a nickname!

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
It doesn’t matter what we label him and the thought of someone sitting in their own…#2…is just sickening. Whether it’s solid, liquid, or gas, I don’t enjoy the odor this person is putting out and we don’t have to stand for it. If you have a solution to the issue, please say so. Otherwise, just let me get back to work.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
Didn’t we all sit in our own poop as toddlers? Didn’t you make stinkies? And if by “work” you mean getting back to your chatting on Facebook, then go ahead. I’m going to take action. I’m going to set a trap for this person. You know that chemical they put in pools that makes pee turn green? I’m going to find a chemical that does the same thing to the air. When this person walks by stinking up the place, the air around him will turn a fluorescent green. Then I’ll throw a fishing net on him (or one of those man-trapper nets like in Planet of the Apes) and then you nail him with a baseball bat until he stops moving.

-Jim

–

To: Jim Connors
From: Betsy Flanders

Jim,
Your propensity for violence is disturbing. First the blanket party comment then advocating we beat a man (okay…or a woman) until they stop moving? Are you sure you’re recovered from your time in combat? I’m not sure I’m comfortable with sitting in your row anymore.

-Betsy

–

To: Betsy Flanders
From: Jim Connors

Betsy,
Recovered? Probably not. I once went to Dunkin Donuts and ordered a Boston Cream Pie doughnut, but instead I got a cream-filled chocolate one. It did terrible things to my insides. I tried to sit quietly in the store and enjoy it anyway, but the clerks kept going off in Arabic, saying something about the smell (of the doughnuts I assume) that was keeping the customers away. My friend (the one I told you about from Afghanistan) told them it was their own nasty body odor that made the place so foul, but they persisted. So I flipped out and beat them up pretty badly with a one-gallon milk carton (those things are heavy, huh?). It was really messy.

-Jim

–

MAIL DELIVERY SYSTEM FAILURE
YOUR MESSAGE HAS NOT REACHED THE FOLLOWING INDIVIDUALS:

Betsy Flanders

THIS ACCOUNT IS NOW BLOCKED.

10 medicine ball overhead throws (20 lbs)
20 meter barbell overhead lunge (135 lbs)
20 foot rope climb
Sprint out 30 seconds and back 30 seconds (don’t be a douche, push yourself)

Time to beat 20:58
Middle of the pack 23:33
Last man 29:14

“Wait…trip flare? What the fuck are you doing with a trip flare?” I replied.

Where he got it isn’t important (especially since the statute of limitations does not apply to “acquired” military ammunition). The only thing you need to know is I had a friend in need. He was a fellow National Guardsman who was moving (after six years in school) and didn’t want to take the aforementioned trip flare with him. So he brought it to a bar to pawn it off on some dumbass. Instead he found me.

“Let me see that,” I said snatching it from his hands. As a recent graduate of Infantry Basic and AIT and (more importantly) a Senior in Army ROTC, I was practically Rambo. All I needed was a grenade pin to rip out with my teeth. And I found it.

“Dude…you want to get rid of this? That’s easy.” Before anyone could move, I had the pin out and tossed it toward the street in front of the bar. I momentarily pondered why everyone was diving for cover, but then figured halfway through the flight of the now white hot magnesium ball of fire slowly arcing over some poor schmuck’s parked car to bounce carelessly into Ohio Street. You see, trip flares light up the second the spoon is released, hence the name trip flare. It wouldn’t do much good with a delay because during the five seconds between the pin being pulled and the miniature sun lighting up, the enemy could be in your foxhole stabbing you in the face. Which is what I hoped someone would do to me when I saw an entire Kansas neighborhood lit up like ground zero of a nuclear blast as this trip flare settled in the middle of the street.

I have never been so amazed at the power of the Army Ordnance Corps as that very moment. Were Eddie Murphy on scene, he would have run around yelling, “Now that’s a fire! That’s a fire!” Five hundred meters down the road, a man walking his dog appeared and just before he fell to the ground shouting in pain and covering his eyes, I could see they were a deep shade of blue. A Stargate opened up on Ohio Street. Waiting for the darkness to reclaim the night was the longest sixty seconds of my life.

“What the fuck, dude?” my buddy yelled as he got up off the ground and turned his back to the boiling hot white dwarf as it melted the world around us. I had to cover my ass.

“You said you wanted to get rid of it right? Problem solved. Now buy me a beer.” He wasn’t buying anything.

“I wanted you to turn it in to the armory for me. You know, like amnesty. Not light up half of campus!”

“The cops are going to come down here for sure,” my other friend said. He was always the “glass is half empty” pessimist of the group, but he was probably right. The Lawrence PD frequently cruised this neighborhood and finding an illegally procured and expended piece of government hardware on a college kid was just the thing redneck cops lust over. Besides, the flare (STILL burning) was attracting the attention of a slew of sorority chicks who were moths to a flame when it came to shiny objects. Only an idiot would have stayed at the scene. Then again, only an idiot would have tossed a military-grade trip flare into the road in front of a bar.

“What is that?” a petite blonde asked, emerging from the bar shielding her eyes. “Did you do that?”

“I’ll hang here,” I said. “What’s the worst that can happen?”

Her eldest son, an Army Staff Sergeant at the time, went overseas in service to our great nation and wrote back home telling her that some of the guys in his artillery battery didn’t have anyone writing them or sending them care packages. If you’ve been overseas, you know how common a story that is. How many of your brothers and sisters don’t have someone back on the home front reminding them they’re loved and how thankful they are for their service, there’s just… nothing.

This didn’t sit well with Patti, at all. So our hero did what people of action do, she got some friends and family together, got the names of the guys who weren’t getting any mail, and started writing and sending this nation’s soldiers care packages.

Still the stories kept coming.

There were always more service members who didn’t have mail, or care packages, or the feeling that someone back home cares, a feeling that as any combat vet will tell you is absolutely paramount. And what about our wounded warriors in places like Landstuhl Germany or Walter Reed or Bethesda? What about families at the Fisher Houses around the country, everyone at BAMC in San Antonio, the Naval Hospitals up and down the West Coast?

Patti and her small band decided that more needed to be done. Through the help of the World Wide Web Patti started realizing that she wasn’t the only person that had a deep seated desire to serve the troops overseas, and that she wasn’t the only person to see the need. A simple act of kindness and care sparked into an idea to do more, and the fire started to burn hot.

Patti and her rapidly growing band of patriots and supporters of the troops overseas started to get donations of money, gear and toiletries. People started to offer other services like quilt making or baking for the troops. It kept growing and Patti was at the front of the charge every step of the way. It grew and it grew. In 2004 her organization officially got 501(c)(3) non-profit status, and the modern version of Soldier’s Angels was born. As of 2008, the last time they released any data, there are over 200,000 Soldier’s Angels volunteers around the world. Men and women empowered and totally committed to the simplest, yet unbelievably powerful, mission statement:

May no soldier go unloved.
May no soldier walk alone.
May no soldier be forgotten,
Until they all come home.

Soldier’s Angels has over twenty active programs including letter writing, care package sharing, quilt making, baking for the wounded and their families, computers for the wounded (through Valor-IT, which our good buddy Matt Bernard helps out on), getting airline miles and travel arranged for the families of the wounded, and a host of other things. At the forefront of all of this is Patti Patton-Bader. She’s not only the founder but she’s also the President of Soldier’s Angels to this day. If you noticed the Patton part of her last name and wondered, she is related to the late General. She’s his niece. After spending five minutes with her there will be no doubt in your mind the Patton family’s fighting spirit is alive and well in his niece.

Patti, you’re so much more than a hero to so many people, even if you’ll never see it that way. Thousands upon thousands of service members have been given joy and a brief respite from the battle field because of you and your leadership of one of the most fantastic service teams ever assembled. The dozens upon dozens of Solder’s Angels volunteers we have worked with all have your same infectious smile on their face, and all will do whatever they can to help our fighting men and women. Just like you they all help for nothing more than the belief in it being the right thing to do.

Patti is also the first Hero I’ve written about that I’ve also met. Within twenty minutes of this being published she will probably send me a Facebook message or call me on the phone to tell me that I’m out of my mind for doing this and that Nick and I are crazy to think of her like this. Patti, that’s just not the case.

For the thousands of troops you have touched, for the tens of thousands of letters and care packages and hundreds of thousands of smiles you have brought to the faces of our nation’s warriors, thank you from the bottom of our collective hearts.

Four rounds for time of:
Row 300m
20 scissor jumps (Left leg forward in a lunge, then jump so you land with your right leg forward in a lunge. That’s one)

Time to beat: 6:09
Middle of the pack: 7:02
Last man: 9:35

It’s an annual thing – Army units have to expend all remaining ammunition in their accounts by September 30th or they don’t get any the following year. The logic goes like this – if Uncle Sam gives you 10,000 rounds of ammunition and one fiscal year to shoot them off, then failing to do so means you don’t need 10,000 rounds of ammunition. You probably only need 9,000 rounds and therefore you get a smaller allocation the following year.

So to avoid getting their ammunition accounts cut, most commanders set up a range in late September to go gun crazy before the end of the fiscal year. When you think about it, that means most commanders are cheating the system to ensure they have more ammunition than they really need, which puts an unnecessary burden on the logistics of the Army, but that’s beside the point. This story is all about how one dumbass, butterbar Lieutenant (me) planned, coordinated, and executed one such range and nearly got a lot of people maimed doing so.

The sheer volume of the ammo we had to shoot was staggering. The breakdown went something like this:

15,000 rounds of 5.56 ball ammo for the M-16
10,000 rounds of 9mm ammo for the pistol
7,000 rounds of 7.62mm for the M60 machine gun
2,000 rounds of 40mm grenades for the M203 grenade launcher
8 hand grenades
15 claymore mines
1 AT-4 rocket

The first indication that this range was destined for lore were the elderly Korean civilians walking leisurely downrange. No matter how much our interpreter implored them to leave (through a bullhorn), they were intent on gathering up rare indigenous roots for some pagan ritual (or just to sell at a local market) and had no interest in petty American qualifications.

“Should I put a round downrange near them to get our point across?” an NCO asked.

“Sure,” I replied.

In hindsight, I’m an idiot. Thankfully this NCO was a good shot and the tracer round that flew over atashi’s (the Korean word for gentleman) head had the desired effect. He picked up his one-eyed dragon wheelbarrow and left quickly, probably to inform his local politician that Americans were trying to kill him.

Didn’t matter. The range was officially open.

The second indicator that this was noy your standard range was the fact that we had every weapon in our arms room on the same firing line. Normally we break up weapons systems into different ranges here in the U.S. The M16 has it’s own range, the M9 has a smaller one, and the M-60 has a longer one. Not in Korea. Realistic training is the name of the game there because hey…in combat would you split up your weapons into different zones? Hell no. So we had everything rocking at the same time, which was perfectly legal at this point. Major Good Ideafairy’s guidance was clearly being met – “Don’t come home with a single round of ammo.”

In hindsight, he was an idiot to tell me this because inexperienced Lieutenants don’t know how to interpret orders, just follow them. So I did exactly what he said to do. There was no way I was bringing a round home.

By mid day, it was hot and blowing off ammo as fast as possible made many barrel’s scorch. Someone joked about a barrel glow bright red from all the ammo we were shooting…until it wasn’t a joke. I’ve never yelled “CEASE FIRE!” so loud and flapped my arms so frantically in my 24-year career. I looked like Tiger Woods trying to deflect alimony suits.

With a ceasefire in effect (and no one injured), I figured it was time to walk down range and throw the 8 hand grenades we brought. Too bad only six of them exploded. Now I had a real problem. I couldn’t leave a dud on the range or some atashi like the previous one might step on it while collecting snipes. Luckily I had a stroke of brilliance.

“Let’s keep shooting and hope someone hits them.”

In hindsight…. this actually was a good idea, though I don’t recommend it. Within an hour of resuming fire I heard two distinct explosions downrange that could only be the two grenades that didn’t detonate. Cool. Now it was time for the big toe-poppers, but again, the Gods of EOD challenged me.

“There’s only two fucking clackers!” Sergeant First Class Snuffy said. We had fifteen claymore mines, but somehow the detonators had all disappeared. It was time for another stroke of innovative genius, but I was tapped having used mine for the day. Seconds later I heard one of the few phrases I hope to never hear again.

“Don’t worry sir. I know how to get rid of them,” Sergeant First Class Snuffy said. Major Good Ideafairy’s guidance echoed in my head again – “Don’t bring anything back,” so I nodded my head weakly. It was time for a red-barrel ceasefire anyway, so off he went with two other troops and a bag of mines. What could happen?

Thirty minutes later I was halfway through an MRE when my eyes wandered over a densely foliaged part of the range. There I beheld our masterful Sergeant First Class Snuffy waving his arm over his head. “What is he…” I said as I choked down a dehydrated beef patty. Suddenly he dove for cover and BOOM!!!

“Jesus Christ!” more than one of us yelled. While explaining himself to the Sergeant Major after lunch, we learned that Sergeant First Class Snuffy had daisy-chained all fifteen claymores to two clackers to detonate them. He told his two soldiers, “when you see me wave my hand and dive for my life, clack away.”

Oh. My. God.

At this point I figured I was too fucked to continue any semblance of a military career and started cutting my Lieutenant bar off my collar. But the mission wasn’t complete. There was still more ammo to expend and as much as I’d screwed up this range, I wasn’t a quitter. No one was dead after all. Just scared shitless. What we needed was a night fire!

In hindsight…we didn’t need a night fire. But we did it anyway. After all, tracers are really cool. Is there anyone who’s served in the Armed Forces who hasn’t ogled at the site of pretty red lights flying downrange at nearly the speed of sound and bouncing into the stratosphere? Who hasn’t wanted to shoot those same tracer rounds straight up into the air directly over the firing line?

Straight up!? Again I screamed ceasefire while flapping my arms, only to realize it was night and no one could see me. As I ran to the firing point where I’d just seen tracer rounds fired vertically over the line, I recognized my buddy (another Lieutenant) aiming his pistol straight up in the air and pulling the trigger as fast as he could.

“Dude!” I yelled. “That shit comes down! Aim downrange!”

“Alright,” he says before turning the danger knob up a thousand notches. “When are we gonna fire that AT-4?” he asks me.

AT-4? Oh mama.

Incredibly, though I offered it to every troop several times, no one wanted to fire the AT-4. I took this as them being so appreciative of me skillfully running this range that they wanted me to have the honor of firing it myself. In hindsight, the fear of grievous bodily harm coupled with the burning desire to abandon this range from hell was palpable. Nearly every man had had a brush with death at some point (there were other incidents that I’ll leave out for brevity) so firing off the biggest Roman Candle the Army made was somewhat daunting.

In hindsight, I will never fire that sonofabitch again. Being dark as five feet up a bull’s ass, there was no way I could have been expected to read the directions on the missile casing, despite the flashlight dangling from my web gear. So I simply aimed it downrange, checked the backblast area (which was not clear) and fingered the weapon for the BOOM!!

“Those triggers are sensitive, aren’t they?” Lieutenant Colonel Bearclaw, my Battalion Commander asked me two days later while I stood at attention in front of his desk. I would have responded had I heard him, but the ringing in my ears was persistent. There was not a hint of sarcasm in his voice, so I had the impression I was Phooked.

“Let’s see,” he started. “Sniping at a civilian, destroying two weapons, firing dud-producing rounds, shooting at hand grenades, firing up but not down range, daisy chaining mines together, and firing an anti-tank weapon without clearing the backblast. Are you really even surprised this happened?”

“Uh…,” I stammered. “Yes?”

“Not you,” he replied. “You.” He glared at Major Good Ideafairy with the white hot intensity of a million suns. When I realized who he was addressing, I leaned ever-so-slightly to my left so he could get a clear shot at him.

“Sir?” Good Ideafairy replied.

I’ll never forget Bearclaw’s response.

“He did exactly what you told him to do-shoot off every round. And though the ends don’t justify the means and he is the dumbest moron in stupidville (his actual words), he at least showed creativity in accomplishing his mission and didn’t let petty obstacles, like civilians in the line of fire, stop him. I hold you responsible. You’re dismissed, Lieutenant.”

I was a cartoon character leaving a puff of smoke and a dangling hat behind me.

Major Good Ideafairy didn’t say much to me for the rest of our time in Korea. We all live with some regret and in hindsight, I was his.