“If It Ain’t Raining, We Ain’t Training!” [photos]

: “Heavy Traffic” | Jason Hunter – Watertown Daily Times

Last week, the Golden Knight Battalion conducted individual movement techniques (IMT) training on the lawn in front of Clarkson U’s Hamlin-Powers residence hall in Potsdam, NY.

Major Toth summed it up with an early Facebook post that was not only prescient, but ominous.

Scott Toth: Pouring rain for IMT lab…just like we planned it #GKB

Every year we do this lab around the same date, and every year we can count on some pretty foul weather. Rain and cold are an IMT lab tradition.

This past year’s weather upheld that tradition. In the few hours that the GKB was out training, Potsdam was slammed with 3.38 inches of rainfall all at once (for some perspective, this amount of rain represented half of Potsdam’s rainfall during the entire month of September!).

Here are some photos of the training:

195 — Ready for the coming rain and wearing wet-weather parkas, Senior Cadet Hewitt helps sophomore Cadet Empey apply facial camouflage.

209 — Cadets start IMT training by learning how to move on the ground and staying low. We start in the open so we can spot each other and make sure we do it right.

215 — After training in the open, we move to an assault course. Cadet Kanaly takes a second from a tough low-crawl to cheese for the camera.

221 — Near the end of training, everybody was pretty soggy from rolling around in the storm. Brrrrrr...

The training ended, and the GKB Cadets headed home to dry off. Many of them were so excited they recorded their thoughts with their own Facebook posts.

Here’s an early one from Cadet Christian:

CDT Christian: Hooah! Just one word to describe it all.

Here are some more early reports from Cadets Phillips and Lampert:

CDT Phillips: I think I’ll be soaking wet until next Tuesday. I love the Army [editor’s note: he was not actually wet the following Tuesday]

CDT Lampert: There’s nothing like rolling around in the mud for two hours to make you feel awesome!!!

And here is a funny one from Cadet Addington:

CDT Addington: I rolled around in a swamp today. Brought me back to my days in ‘Nam. [editor’s note: Addington was not actually in Vietnam]

It wasn’t too long before the downpour that drenched and excited these cadets began flooding the streets of Potsdam. It also caused the Raquette River to flood over the banks and bridges. This brought some more responses from GKB cadets on Facebook.

Here’s a portrait of the situation from Cadet Pecka:

CDT Pecka: Dear Potsdam, if you could stop raining that would be amazing. Everything I have worn today is soaked and thus so is my apartment. the roads and parking lots are flooded and all you hear in the buildings is the squeaking of someones sneakers. All of this nonsense and you don’t even have the kindness to give us thunder and lighting with it to enjoy. Shame on you Potsdam, I thought better of you.

One GKB Cadet got stranded when a bridge leading out-of-town was closed.

CDT Empey: Well I did enjoy the rain at lab today, but now I’m stranded in Potsdam with none of the homework I need…they closed the bridge between Potsdam and Wal-Mart. I might try to head back home again soon…good thing I’ve got an extra pair of PTs in my car.

Our Senior Military Instructor, Master Sergeant Empey sent this jibe to a senior GKB cadet who couldn’t make it to the lab:

MSG Empey: Mr. Ables, wish you could have been there with us today. As an aviation guy, you won’t have many more chances to get dirty or wet!

The GKB Cadet Battalion Commander summarized the day’s events with a nostalgic look to when he was a freshman Cadet crawling through the rain-soaked grass himself: