NIC-at-Night

NIC, the Night Infiltration Course, is designed to provide a basic feeling for what it is like to be in a firefight. It seems more appropriate to a cold-war scenario, or perhaps even a landing on the beaches of Normandy, but it was interesting nonetheless. We started at one end of a sand pit the length of perhaps two football fields, and had to low crawl to the other end, with machine guns firing over our heads, simulated explosions left and right (the area where the explosions go off are carefully fenced in), and the occasional flare that gets shot up. When a flare goes off, it’s like a bit roman candle, except that the rocket pops a parachute, and returns to Earth still burning so that the “enemy” can spot us. We have to stop moving while a flare is burning, then resume crawling as soon as it goes out.

It was a fun little exercise, but has little to do with today’s real world combat.