Well, after a day or two to decompress and climb out from under an ABSURD number of work emails, I am finally getting to my recap of my 6 day run as OPFOR for @Brushbeater SCOUT and student for RECCE and @DolioJ condensed stabby class. I was blessed with a unique opportunity (and gracious wife) to do the full 6 days so this was a very special experience that I will not be likely able to repeat for some time. I arrived the night of 10/8 to avoid major city morning traffic the next day to serve as OPFOR for the SCOUT students. After coming within .5" of some random Montanan's car parked haphazardly on the driveway, I was able to get camp set up and get a couple cold ones down with the boys/gals before turning in for the night. There were rumors on the crisp night air that evening of a gale making landfall in the Gulf of America and even a curious appearance of a reclusive author on the horizon. With some disappointment and much anticipation, I tore myself away from my comrades to get some rest before our first day of SCOUT. Day 1 of SCOUT: After a relatively decent rest despite odd calls of wailing women I determined were coyotes but could not attribute all the sounds of the dark to just those fiends, I reported to the main house kitchen where Chef T was preparing a hearty OPFOR breakfast. I was also informed by @HunchtheRoofer of the selection of coffee (Gay Coffee vs Not Gay Coffee) and the policy of "finish the pot, brew anew" of our Ninja Barista. After wise counsel from @M1683687M in the addition of a pinch of cinnamon to my morning brew, I grabbed my gear and met in the team room with the rest of OPFOR. After introductions and tutelage from our host, @Brushbeater, all parties made way to our rehearsal field to demonstrate small unit maneuvers and structures. It was cleansing to the soul to be back in the fields of Caswell moving as units, a reminder that fellowship with your fellows in the Old Ways is to be embraced to the fullest. After a break for lunch, more tutelage and field maneuvers followed, and a much needed downgrade of gear was in order after more sage advice from @HunchtheRoofer (a recurring theme from OPFOR service: take advantage of lessons learned in sweat by others.) Post evening chow and sundown, all parties reported back to the rehearsal field under light discipline for a NODs walkabout. This night last year for me was my first experience with Night Vision and it was a joy to see the technology's proliferation has increased in just that short span of time. Of equal joy was seeing others experience the piercing of the black veil with tubes and therms for the first time. Returning to camp for some more comradery, including a siting of the legend himself, @mnsibley (even got a peak at draft 3, spoiler: the Ghanaians win! sns!) and eventual rest, we prepared for Day 2. Day 2 of SCOUT: Day 2 Chef T rolled out the big guns for breakfast: a spread of breakfast tacos complete with MT bear sausage and borderline irresponsible quantities of Not Gay Coffee. It appeared that the rumors of the invading gale had rung true: rain was forecasted for the next continuous 48hrs. Knew I should have packed my swim trunks! Blank Firing Adapters were distributed and safety checks performed, we were going hot with ambushes today. The students performed very well and did not let the poor conditions get them down, very appropriate considering there is no point in being a fair-weather actor, rain or shine the tree of liberty must dine. I must insist that one should always have a reliable rain resistant garment, preferably a poncho of sorts, in their kit. The only thing worse than putting on half wet pants on a cold morning is putting on soaked wet pants and shirt/gear. Worth every penny, and you might even start to hear faint tunes of a springfield buffalo, for what it's worth. It was a blast seeing the students take lessons learned and applied in real time from engagement to engagement. Fire Teams sticking together, calling out downed OPFOR during S&C and coordination amongst teams evolved exponentially. We would have our hands full with the evenings night engagement. The night raid is where the students really get thrown into the deep end and you really start to see limitations in your personal assessments/assumptions. This event was no exception. On OPFOR, I found appreciation for changes I had made in the last year in gear, skills and personal fitness. I also found appreciation in how billions of dollars in warfare tech R&D just gets pissed on, quite literally, by mother nature. OPFOR occupied the rehearsal field, surrounded on 3 sides by woods and atop the affectionately named "Hamburger Hill." We also had experience and considerable investments in gear advantages over the average student. Guess what looks like the same temp as the surrounding rain filled air? Everything else, including the trees/woods. Might as well have been staring at a purple sheet of construction paper. We wouldn't see the students until they were right on top of us. The only reason, apart from an advantage in average experience and foreknowledge, that OPFOR wasn't swept from the field quickly was because of another lesson from mother nature: Murphy comes out to play at night. A hard lesson for the students, and one I should have paid better attention to for my future foray in RECCE. Day 3 of SCOUT: After living in a shower for the last 36 hours, the final day raid of the air field for SCOUT graduation must have seen seemed daunting. But, with a doge of a tornado in the night, mother nature promised rays of sun in the afternoon. The students performed much better this go around, and showed great discipline in avoiding drone detection. While still not the all seeing eye of Sauron, there is no question this sector of warfare is becoming just as common as NV and Thermal. Our OPFOR team at the airstrip performed valiantly and died gloriously, and the students repelled my teams ambush during their exfil and we too fell all the same. Incredibly proud of the students, my class really only had to deal with some cold temperatures last year, this class literally had a hurricane come barreling at them and took it in stride! I greatly enjoyed my time as OPFOR and would encourage all SCOUT/RECCE grads to volunteer as able, the pool of knowledge you gain access to with OPFOR spans beyond a century's worth of collective experience. It is also a great training value to the students, it's one thing to go against relatively equally experienced fellow scouters, it's a whole other ball game going up against a crew that already knows what you are about to do and can react dynamically to your actions. We congratulated the students and said goodbyes but no rest for me: I had a lesson in the ways of the blade with Sensei @DolioJ that afternoon. A Knife and A Winning Attitude: I must provide a bit of a confession here in that I spent the last 2+ years in a Bible Study with @DolioJ and spent a good portion of the last year poking him to do a combatives lesson Sunday afternoon post-scout. I probably should've taken a moments pause when he folded a bit too easily..... We had ~a dozen students and learned how to hold, attack, defend and disarm opponents, both with and with out a blade of our own. We concluded with a round-robin tournament with the final two being myself and one sweaty @realBob_Johnson. I took an early point but as the reps continued @realBob_Johnson was able to leverage his advantage in viscosity to close out a 3 - 2 victory. His reward: Fight a well rested @DolioJ. In surprise to most, @realBob_Johnson secured his gold medal, and I was quite happy with my bronze! Cannot recommend this and @DolioJ other classes he teaches year-round enough, especially his Fieldcraft course which was an excellent building block for SCOUT. Day 4, The RECCE Grads of SCOUT are allowed to advance to the next level which is RECCE. While many skills transfer well, there are new ones that are needed as you are moving from squad sized actions of 3, 4-man fireteams and 1 squad leader, in many cases two squads in SCOUT to a far smaller element in RECCE of 2 4-man fireteams with one FT leader per team. The context of your actions are also different in RECCE as your primary focus is long term disruption of opposition activity which requires preservation of man power above all else. Recon is the purpose, SALUTE reports are how the purpose is conveyed, stealth is how the purpose is perpetuated. If direct action is required, it is precise, expedient and violent. We learned new maneuvers and styles of ambush. OPFOR was given far more operational liberty and now had the numbers advantage. Surprise and cunning would be necessary to even the odds. We'd be learning quickly now, that afternoon was our first mission, attacking an enemy convoy sent to retrieve the bodies of the earlier SCOUT attack on the airstrip. We were given a time, expected route, some general advice and then left to our planning. The individual member must demonstrate the ability to wear multiple hats and our teams, Alpha (later Weiner) and my team Bravo (later Schnitzel) exemplified this to a T. RECCE teams also have to coordinate attacks out of direct line of site to maximize area of effect while minimizing exposure. We successfully dispatched our targets (details will be vague from here, much of your success depends on creativity and team composition. Your team will have to decide how to best handle your challenge) and returned to camp for evening chow. We immediately began planning our next mission for a night ambush along the same route against an advisory who would no doubt want to investigate what happened to their convoy. This would be done at night and we knew Murphy, and drones, would come out to play. The engagement itself went hot for less than 30 seconds. In that time, we had completely eliminated a force but since we practically ran into one another our TL's wisely decided to break contact and melt down hillside. Our goal was to interdict and disrupt, and we had achieved this. Day 5: Long day at the office Day 2 of RECCE was all about Recon and intelligence gathering. We would be conducting an Area Recon by utilizing a two man element, call sign Breadbag. Myself and another would compose this element. For several hours we stalked our OPFOR, crawling, sliding, sneaking ever closer (sometimes too close) to our target. Gone was the moisture and rain from SCOUT, it seemed like summer had returned in force. I like to think of myself as being in fairly decent shape, this day put me to the test. After we felt that we had expended all the luck we could spare, we made our way back to Weiner and Schnitzel so we could send in our SALUTE report. @Brushbeater now "Bratwurst" gave our next assignment to hit the target we had been stalking. A glorious engagement ensued, I was thankful that OPFOR was only shooting blanks. You will find in RECCE that the margin for success is far slimmer, and you'll have the curse of knowledge that you fell short. We returned for dinner and our next assignment, we would be conducting a night recon of an enemy force launching rockets from the air strip. We would conduct a SALUTE report and then remove the threat if ordered. Do you like thistles? How about 6 foot high briar patches? Eyeball seeking pine needles? You'll find all these and more in abundance at G-camp, especially at night, at no extra charge! NODs and thermals are great here, but you need to know how to use and operate with them effectively. I am going to be logging many hours walking at night to get better use to these tools. It's almost like learning how to walk again, your mind will need to adapt and accept the limitations of yourself and the technology. Anyone can walk around in a field with NV for a half hour, navigating through the woods for 3+ hours will require substantially more fortitude. Coordinating 2 teams to synchronize an attack from two different points 500 yds apart across an open field might as well be magic. But we did it. That felt good. The truck ride back to camp felt even better (we signed waivers!) Back at camp I had to lay down for a bit, thanks @Sad_HAMs_ for not stepping on my head! That day just about did it for me, I cannot stress enough the importance of physical health and that includes stretching often. Day 6: No Easy Days Last Mission. Zone Recon (series of Area Recons). A SATCOM site and an Exfil sight. Two recon elements, Schnitzel's Breadbag, now Bobcat, and Lynx from Weiner Team. OPFOR was unleashed after SATCOM was eliminated. THERE WAS A FIREFIGHT!!! @Jaxredhead7450 green wig flowing, shrilled something about her body and her voice. @HunchtheRoofer laughed with glee as his bolter belched flame. @DolioJ saw homes for his bayonet in our nethers. We bounded back down the hill from the Exfil site, I ran unceremoniously into a tree branch that I swear jumped out in front of me. Index was called and I was once again glad everyone was using blanks. I have no military experience. While others in my family proudly served, I never felt the calling during the ages one typically joined. This is for most intents and porpoises (I'm a dad, I use dad jokes indiscriminately, get over it) a large LARP event. What it is also is community. It's fellowship with other likeminded individuals who all feel there is something very dark ahead on our horizon. I hope I never have to use any of my skills, learned in SCOUT/RECCE or any other like skills in real life. That will be a very sad day indeed. The Old Ways are skills that must be passed down to the posterity, I have seen several multigenerational attendees at these events. I intend to take my young ones once they are older. No one plays on Sunday if they go without putting in the hours of practice Mon-Sat. Those who think these types of courses are a waste of time, boys playing at war, I hope they are right. Just as I hope everyone on the highway knows how to use their brakes and the people who built my house knew how to wire things correctly. But I still wear my seatbelt and have a fire extinguisher in my kitchen. Get outside. Touch grass with your friends. Meet your mutuals. Go with God. Thanks to All in this community. See you next year. Bobcat1: Out @GhostEaterEddy @BePrepared72 @WadeWil83870520 @BigAl110011 @theBibitor @SquishyHunter @Truckyduck3404 @BobDavi91065455 @bradley_hartwig @JWClark45 @SkylineGuardian @in_archangel @CampPndrsa