High explosives training at Camp James A. Garfield helps prepare future Army combat engineers

Took my training in Germany in 1972, it was the best time and had, and it's come in handy too made good cash removing stumps..

That is actually where I reclassed. Part of the training is there at Ravenna, and the other part was in West Virginia because we couldn't do demo at Ravenna (that is a long time ago, might be different now). Interesting they changed the name.

If the training is still only 16 days long...........that isn't enough to really scratch the surface of all that being a 12b COULD entail. Could be a week or two longer.

I did learn alot in those few days, and the instructors were very good. Serious and task focused, good knowledge bases, but personable. It actually let me knock off two states I hadn't been to before doing the split training the way the did it in Pennsylvania and West Virginia (the WV camp, can't remember what it was called was NICE) so I'm not complaining about that. After we passed the course on the second to last night we left and caught an Indians game. I'm not a baseball guy, but we got to see a game end on a walk off grand slam by the Indians, so it was one of the better overall Army experiences I had.

Seems like it would be a pretty good gig. Congrats.

I have a friend who is getting ready to start AIT in Fort Leonard Wood in a few days. I think I had a hand in him choosing this MOS. I really hope he has as much fun as I did. AIT was just like Basic 2.0 at Leonard Wood. We never got any time off like the stories of so many other AIT's that were like 8:00 to 5:00 jobs. We were training 7 days a week and something new every couple days. I just wonder how much things have changed since 1987. The automatic mine layer was just coming out back then. The explosive line charge to clear a mine field was still brand new. The M-81 cratering charge was a new item. I spent 2 weeks digging my fox hole at Fort Wood and it was a foot deep and had four feet of rocks around the perimeter. I broke 3 trenching tools digging that hole with my battle buddy. I'm looking forward to hearing his stories.