Abilities:
Fire the M16 A2 service rifle with...fair accuracy. I can at least hit a 24-inch target 19 times out of 20, and in rapid fire-where I'm not having to take the rifle out of my arm to mark where I shot-I tend to stay pretty near the 12-inch center of the target. I intend to pick up the pistol as well, soon.
Marine Corps. Martial Arts Program, AKA McMap. Some really cool choke holds here-two of them can drop you in twelve seconds flat. I know this from experience. (The time is cut because you focus on cutting the blood flow to the brain, rather than oxygen to the body. The more you know...) Other than that, mostly just basic kicking and punching. I intend to progress past tan belt at the first opportunity, however.
Swimming in full camouflage. It's surprisingly easy.
Ability to not be phased by having a drill instructor in my face. After 10 weeks, you get kinda numb to it.
Having 3 pull-ups, a 24-minute run time for 3 miles...and what I'm most proud of, 110 crunches in two minutes. I'mma work on that first part though. I want to pull that up to 20 by the end of the year.
Ability to carry lots and lots of luggage all at one time. Two
Seabags, a body bag with my
Dress Blues, Service Uniform, and other various clothes, and my overnight bag. So fun. And we weren't allowed to carry it on our backs, either...
The Confidence course. Dear lord, the confidence course. Let me break this down bit by bit.
First, the dirty name. There's a thick log, at about chest level. You jump at it, pull yourself on top of it...and repeat it from the top of the log with another log, falling off of it on the other side.
Second, Stairway to Heaven. I'd say it was about...thirty feet high. Basically a big ladder you needed to climb over, only with foot-wide logs for steps. There was also the rope ladder wall, which was pretty much the same thing.
Third, the rope swing. Jump over a pit with a rope suspended in the middle, land on the other side, like any action movie you care to name. That one was easy.
Fourth, mounting the wall. Throw yourself at a wall that's about seven feet high...and pull yourself over it. Then do it again.
Fifth, the wall
climb. Twenty feet, using your feet braced against the wall and a rope to haul yourself up, go over the top, and drop on the other side.
Sixth, the Monkey Swing. Suspended fifteen feet over water, the only thing you have under your feet is a really, really shaky rope that refuses to stay still.
Seventh, the Monkey Bars. You know those monkey bars you found so fun as a kid? Have them angle up and down at random points, and then do a pull-up at the end. And did I mention that it's about sixty feet from one end to the other?
Eigth, the Arm Walk. Take two metal bars, a little higher than chest height. Using only your hands, suspend yourself between them and 'walk' for about thirty feet.
http://www.wvec.com/news/gallery/pi/large/PC080028.JPG
Ninth, the Weaver.
http://www.wvec.com/news/gallery/pi/large/PC080042.JPG See those logs? You go under the second one, then over the first, then under the third...and repeat, for about twenty logs. Without touching the ground.
Then, the most horrible part. The A-frame. I...it's horrible. I need a visual confirmation here.
A-frame. Alright, see those ropes? First, climb up them. This is rather difficult in of itself. Then, walk across that damn shaky platform until you get to those logs you see that are forming an upside-down V...or, an A. At the end of that log is a rope-but not just any rope. While Barret has his golden shiny wire of hope, this is more like the fucking taunting rope of hatred. See, it's
just far enough away to be out of your grasp...so instead of having a nice leisurely ride down, you have to -leap- off that A shape, and pray that you A)grab it, and B)don't just slide down it. The latter causes severe rope burns. Seriously.
However, every time you do the course you gain 1x hardcore point. I've acquired two.
Ability to survive for 54 hours in fucking single digit temperature, with a grand total of two meals in me. And then sharing part of that meal with another guy, because he was starving.
I also put a skill point into using crutches. I kinda got hurt on that 54-hour jaunt-tore my hip flexor pretty badly, and was told to stay off of my legs as much as possible. That sucked. A lot.
And as far as Charles' question goes...I have secret clearance since I'll be working with the government's security systems. That count for anything? I'll have a keycard and everything for the hero to use once our government becomes corrupt and needs a lone vigilante hero to save us all. Hopefully I'm not a semi-competent NPC who simply gets killed off during that time, though. I kinda like breathing.