Fort Donelson

A few weekends ago I took a drive out to the Fort Donelson National Battlefield. It is the site of a civil war battle along the Cumberland River. It was really interesting to drive around and learn about the battle and how decisive of a victory it was for the Union at the time.

It was a three day battle which started on February 13th, 14th, and 15h, 1862. It was a Confederate camp that the Union attacked due to its location as being a vital supply route. The Union was losing the battle for most of the first two days, but won due to some poor decisions from the Confederates generals.

There was cannons set up all over occupying the same positions they were in 148 years ago.

The bottom four photos are all of the battery overlooking the Cumberland river.

This is the valley where the fort was along with a replica of a cabin were the Confederate soldiers lived.

I thought this was interesting. It is a quote from Union General Smith. He said this as he charged towards the retreating Confederates.

After I finished walking around the battlefield, I drove over the the national cemetery. I found it interesting that no Confederate soldier was buried here because they fought against the Untied States. Only Union soldiers were buried here.

This is the Dover Hotel. It was the place where the General Grant met with Confederate General Buckner to discuss the terms of the south's surrender.

It was a very interesting place to visit and I learned a lot. If you’re ever in area its a neat place to check out.

Fort Campbell, My New Home

So as most everyone knows the army recently decided that it needed me at Fort Campbell, KY more then it needed me at Fort Carson, CO. I left Fort Carson and the 1-2 “Gunfighters”at the end of September. I was ready to leave the unit, however I was sad to have to say goodbye to all the good friends I had there. Hopefully some day down the road I’ll see some of them again.

I got to Fort Campbell the second week of October and began the long process of doing all the in-processing you have to do when you move to another duty station. Mostly this involves things like dental and medical exams and making sure all your paper work is correct.

After all that is done I got assigned to my new unit, which is part of the 101st Airborne Division.  This will be my new home for most likely the next three years. I am doing the same thing that I did at Fort Carson, just with new faces and new aircraft.

On another note, most of you may know already that I will be deploying next February. I don’t know any details besides that for now.

Skydiving

Last Saturday and some guys from my shop and I decided to go skydiving. We did a static line jump. This is different from what you normally see with people free falling for several seconds before the chute deploys. Instead you jump out by your self with a line connected to the aircraft which pulls the chute out. If you’ve ever seen Band of Brothers, its the same thing.

We started the day by going through a few hours of classes on proper technique and making sure your parachute is good and flyable once it is deployed. This is me learning the proper way to exit the aircraft.

I was the first one to jump from my aircraft. There's only room for 3 jumpers plus your jumpmaster in the aircraft. So I was sitting in the doorway just like the above picture until i jumped. Once you get to altitude, we jumped at 3500 ft, the door opens and the jumpmaster says GO! You reach behind you and grab the orange painted section of wing. Then set your feet on the little step above the wheel and slide out to the yellow section of wing. At this point your feet are dangling and your just holding on.

This is right above the yellow section. Your supposed to look at it right before you let go. By doing this it puts your body into and arch which makes your parachute deploy properly. You only fall for about 5 seconds before the parachute deploys. Then its about a 2-3 minute flight to the ground.

Here I am soaring to the ground.

 

 

 

 

This is a picture I took of Wilson. I think it turned out awesome.

 

 

 

And this is the guys from my plane. From left to right its Peirce, out jumpmaster Tommy, Marchese, and me.

 

This is what they gave before we left. It was a really fun thing to do and I will defiantly do it again.

NTC

Here’s a video I made of my of my pictures from NTC.

Back Again

For those of you who don’t know, I spent the last month in the Mojave desert. My battalion was once again at the National Training Center located at Fort Irwin, CA. I’ll be posting some pictures I took during the month tomorrow.

Right now all you get is this picture I took of one of our pilots. O wait, that’s not a pilot, that’s a baby. Sorry I got confused by the close resemblance to some of our pilots. And the fact that he could probably fly better then some of them.

Shelf Road

After we left Red Canyon Park we continued on Shelf Road. So these are just some pictures I took on the main scenic portion of the road. There’s a few of them because I liked them all and couldn’t narrow it down to less then I already have.

   

  

   

The next picture is probably one of my favorites. As we neared the end of the trail we came around a corner and saw the mountains in the distance through the trees. The view was amazing and pretty much took your breath away.

Shelf Road ends in the little town of Cripple Creek. This is looking back down at the town as you leave.

The road back to the springs is also very scenic but because it is a pretty narrow winding road there isn’t really room to pull over and take pictures. We did pass this unused tunnel and stopped to get a picture of it. It’s called the Watershed tunnel. It’s locked up so you cant drive through but it looked cool from the road. 

 

 

Red Canyon Park

So this was a four day weekend due to memorial day. I’ve been wanting to go on a local trail known as Shelf road for some time and finally got around to doing that. It is just one of the few trails in the area that make up the Gold Belt Tour. These are the trails that people used to travel west and between towns during the gold rush and the years following it. However pictures of the actual trail will be coming tomorrow.

The first part of the trail starts out with Red Canyon Park. It reminded me of Garden of the Gods but with a lot less people and a lot more vegetation.

My buddy, Morrow, and I decided we wanted to climb the to the top of this big rock formation.

Along the way we saw these flowers and thought it was funny how they can grow on the side of a rock.

 

 

 

Here I am, victorious at the top.

And then we both take a break and enjoy the view.

Can you find me in this picture? 

O, there I am. Taking another break.