Yeah, that was are winter survival training. That was why a lot of guys were wearing odd jackets and such. We were only allowed to choose 5 items out of everything else we brought. The rest was contraband. Our shelter was made out of sticks, branches, and pinestraw. We had to make around 4 of them because we obviously can't fit everybody in one shelter made out of such. I happened to have watch from 12-3 at night. The weather was shit. It poured all night during my fire watch which was tending to the fire and trying to keep it going (which somehow I did even though it was pouring gallons). I was with 3 other cadets on watch. We all got soaked. It was around 24 degrees that night and we. where. wet. SO I was freezing, my shelter was soaked. I had no pair of extra clothes as this was strictly a primitive training. My LPO/Lead Petty Officer is a jerk and didn't care about how cold and soaked we were. We had a Marine Corp drill srg with use who lucky for us had MREs so we had some of those, but the rest of our food we had to hunt. Not to mention one of our cadets got chased by a bear during his watch when we were all asleep and ran up a tree and fell asleep on it. So we spend 8 hours looking for him and we found him thankfully. Over all, yes I enjoyed the experience as it was a challenge, and I want to join the Marine Corp right out of high.
