Sense of Smell

The chapter covering sense of smell made me reflect upon myself a great deal.  Seeing the video of where the students had to follow a scent while on the ground was very interesting.  In the Army your sense of smell is very important, if your job places you in the field.  Back in my initial training my Drill Sergeant would take us out into the field and have us spread out and wait for about half an hour.  This allowed us to get a good sense of the natural sounds of the environment and the natural smells.  Then he would leave us with the instructions of telling us to report when we smelled a foreign sent by calling out.  He would disappear into the woods and eventually we would smell what seemed to be bug spray come and go.  What he did was spray a little bit onto his pant leg and walk our perimeter out of view.  The purpose of him doing this was to show us how we were able to detect small changes in our environment.  The bug spray was representing either the enemy and the importance of not wearing foreign scents into the field.

Another story is last summer during some training I went too on Ft Dix.  I made a buddy in my class who was a rear "gear head" like myself.  When we went to leave post after our school day was over and I started up my truck (we were both in my cab) he said "did you smell that faint smell of coolant when you turned on your AC?" and I said no.  So later on I checked under my hood to find my water pump was starting to leak from its weep hole, meaning the pump was beginning to fail.