MCMAP yyyeaa get some marine!!!

                                         I didnt have a MCMAP pic but heres a moto pic

So there I was standing in formation getting ready to leave for the day when my Gunnery Sergeant called off my name. It snapped me back from my day dream of life not in 8th Comm BN... Lcpl Jones you are in the Grey Belt coarse that starts next week... HELL YEAA!!! I responded ay ay gunny but in my head I was already envisioning the mcmap pit and executing a hip toss on my unfortunate opponent. For those of you who dont know mcmap stands for Marine Corps Martial Arts Program and there are 5 belts and several tabs. You receive your tan belt in boot camp and mostly everybody stays with their tan belt as a junior marine unless you are fortunate enough to get selected for a course. I took half of the course while I was in Twentynine Palms, CA Communications school. After grey belt there is the green belt and you execute shoulder tosses and sparring with your oppponent. Then there is Brown belt where you do both sparring and ground fighting then of course you have the famous black belt that everybody strives to be. In order to be anything above a grey belt you have to go through a month of absolute hell for the green brown and black belts. Getting the shit kicked out of you by a black belt with two red tabs was what happened to a friend of mine. There are horror stories and I love hearing all the crazy shit that goes down but now I needed to focus on the measley grey belt syllabus. Three days, 12 hours straight of mcmap were ahead of me and I knew I was going to get broke off. Bring it on this is why I joined the Marine Corps.

We started the course off with a little warm up for PT. We ran a PFT (Physical Fitness Test) Every branch of service requires you to complete one every fiscal year but the Marine Corps is the only one with the most rigorous requirements. For females you hang on the pull up bar, do crunches and run three miles. Its the same for males but they have to do 20 pull ups. Easy as shit. I was disappointed in my PFT and I didnt run it for score. I hung on the bar for 64 seconds (max is 70) did the max in crunches 100, and ran my 3 miles in 26 minutes. But anyways after we all completed the pft we headed to the MCMAP pit. The pit is full of rubber chunks to soffen the fall. We remediated over the tan belt for 2 hours then we finally started the grey belt syllabus. We executed what to do if somebody was choking you from the front. You grab their hand (not supporting the wrist) bend it back then shoot your right arm underneath their arm pit... voila you now have control of them and they will go wherever you want them to go. We did several other moves and finally the end of the day neared. We were all exhausted and we were all nervous to grappel because most of us hadn't done it before. I had grappeled two females in comm school and I choked one out and I got choked out by the other one. When my gunny snapped his fingers at me I jumped to my knees ready to get some. I got around Etienne one of my friends and I executed a four finger variation choke and he tapped out after about 3 seconds. yea the adrenaline was pulsing through my veins. My friend Krege jumped in the circle which threw me off because I didnt really want to grappel her. I could feel myself going into an arm bar but I couldnt pull my arm away from hers and I had to tap because the pain that was shooting through my arm was too great. My third bout was with a male and I was able to get him into a choke and he tapped quickly. It is a high that I cant explain when you are fighting somebody. You dont worry about getting hurt and if you do you cant really feel it because of the adreneline. After the grappeling we headed home. The next day was much like the day before. Executing new moves and trying to establish muscle memory. The third day we were able to go over everthing we had learned and I had everything down pat. I tested out with a sergeant who I get along with pretty good. You have to do 5 tan belt moves and if you get any of them wrong you automatically fail. I was really nervous because I forget things easily when testing comes. I passed everything not missing one move. I felt so good because I really worked my ass off for that belt. Im still sore from getting thrown in arm bars and getting leg sweeped, the shit sucks but it is totally worth it. Here I come green belt.

The gas chamber

SO there I was sitting on the cold bleachers listening to LCPL Arbalez explain how the gas mask works and how the MOP gear protects your skin from noxious gases but all that was going through my head was "holy crap I really really dont want to do this." I kept flashing back to bootcamp, this time sitting on a wooden bench listening to a female sgt explain the same things that LCPL Arbalez was explaining but to 500 female and male recruits. My brain housing group was still fresh, no horrible memories of the gas chamber. I had no idea what to expect. After the quick PME from the sgt all of us lined up outside the chamber. We took everything out of our pockets and placed the contents on our raggedy covers. I donned and cleared my mask one more time before I walked in the cement building praying to god it worked. Well it did not work and I could immediately feel the gas seeping into the pores of my face. That exact memory kept occuring while I was standing next to a female cpl in my shop and my best friend LCPL Goff. With tears in my eyes I kept telling Goff that I didnt want to do this and all the while I was working myself up because the gas mask makes it much harder to breath. So there I was with my gas mask on breathing harder than I am used to which was making me feel clostrophobic. Its something you can't imagine until you are doing it. The NBC (nuclear biological chemicals) Master Sargeant came up to me because he could see I was scared. He calmed me down with stories of when he was scared in an actual NBC attack. This made me realise that the CS gas wont kill me it will just hurt pretty bad. I still kept flashing back to the feeling of not being able to breath or see. Finally it was my time to walk into the chamber. With my best friend and my corporal on each side I entered what I feared the most in the Marine Corps. We walked in and found the yellow block to stand on. I could immediately feel the gas seeping into my mask just like it had done in boot camp. FUCK! I remained calm. Its funny that smell, I could recognize it anywhere, something like old eggs. I did as the lcpl in charge did, and looked all the way to the left, then all the way to the right. Up then down. Next we bent down at the waist and shook our heads vigorously as if there was something in our hair we were trying to get out. That is when my eyes started watering to the point where I couldn't see. Arbalez could see that I was in pain so he pulled me aside then realizing that I was in trouble he pulled me out of the chamber. HOW EMBARASSING! I walked out of the chamber by myself infront of the whole battalion. I took off the mask and there was snot and tears all over my face. I couldn't wipe anything off because the CS gas was on my gloves and that would only make things worse. You can't wear contacts in the gas chamber because the CS gas will burn them into your eyes and glasses wont fit under your mask. I am very blind without my glasses so I couldn't see anything around me. My gunny came up to me to see if I was alright. One thing that nobody else did so that made me respect him even more. But there I was with snot all over my face just chillin talking to my gunnery sargeat and a master sargeant. Not cool. They gave me a new harness because of my bun on the back of my head, I couldnt get a good seal. The second time I went in, it was a completely different story. I got a good seal, I donned and cleared my mask like a pro. Now I have all the confidence in the world in my M40 protective mask. Just a day in the life of a marine.