machine guns

The past three days have been spent in the classroom learning everything there is to know about the four most common machine guns used by the U.S.Army.  We started out with  the 240 B, which replaced the M-60 (Rambo's gun) and is a 7.62mm belt fed open bolt light machine gun.  Next, we learned about the SAW (squad automatic weapon) a 5.56mm fully automatic machine gun, which also fires from the open bolt  position.  After those two we moved to the M-2 (.50 Cal), which I knew a lot about from my Field Artillery days.  Today, we practiced on the MK-19 (Mark 19), which is the fully automatic grenade launcher effective out to 2200 meters.  I remember seeing them mounted to the stryker vehicles the first time I was in Iraq.  It always seems weird to say "my first time in Iraq", like any soldier or soldier's family should have to endure two combat tours, while the rest of the country sits comfortably by with no chance of being drafted (truly pathetic).  Tomorrow we fire all the weapons mentioned above.