S.S.D.D.

"Same shit, different day."

S.S.D.D is the first level in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. It serves as a tutorial to teach players basic gameplay mechanics.

Walkthrough
The level starts with PFC. Joseph Allen and Sgt. Foley training some local Afghan National Army soldiers who keep firing from the hip during training. Sgt. Foley tells Allen to do a quick weapons demonstration. Allen picks up a M4A1 and shoots the targets and then throws a frag grenade to demonstrate its effectiveness against targets. After teaching the local soldiers, Foley tells Allen to meet Cpl. Dunn at The Pit. Dunn demonstrates that switching to your sidearm is faster than reloading. Then Dunn tells you to run the course. In the course, you have to clear enemy emplacements without civilian casualties. After running The Pit, you choose the difficulty. Shortly after leaving The Pit, an alarm sounds and soldiers will rush to a group of returning Humvees that have brought wounded soldiers from BCT One(including Walden and Arnett). Sgt. Foley yells to the squad to ready up, and you then prepare for battle. Also at the end of the Pit, you can hear some Rangers talking about Soap's, Roach's, and Ghost's obstacle course scores.

Tips
The only challenging part of this level is The Pit; below are strategies for improving your time. You earn the Achievement/Trophy "Pit Boss" if your final time is under 30 seconds.
 * Besides what time you complete the course, your accuracy and the number of targets and civilians you hit are taken into account, and time will be added or deducted depending on performance.
 * It is possible to get a few one-shot, two-hit kills if you line up the targets right.
 * Memorize where enemy and civilian targets cross to avoid penalizations.
 * A weapon with low bullet penetration is a good idea to use in the Pit, as high power rifles run the risk of the bullet going through a terrorist target and hitting a civilian target, especially if they are lined up. The MP5K and Mini-Uzi are good examples, as is the USP .45 (with its Tactical Knife attachment).
 * Try to shoot one round at a time to maximize accuracy and minimize ammunition consumption, saving the need to waste time reloading.
 * At the Pit before your first run Cpl. Dunn opens up the boxes he was sitting on to reveal more weapons for you to choose from before you run the Pit.
 * After running The Pit once, the player will find more weapons to choose from, including an M14 EBR Scoped.
 * It is recommended to use an MP5k and the USP .45 combination so that the player can move faster while aiming down sights, and to take out the targets more quickly if the player has to reload.
 * It is possible to finish The Pit with only 14 bullets from the M9, with one bullet left over. To do this every one-shot, two-hit kills must be achieved, while knifing at least two targets in addition the the mandatory knifing target.
 * Pistols(M9 and USP .45) are more effective, with low-penetration, high mobility, fast reload and being semi-automatic.

Enemy Intel

 * Intel No. 1: (1/1 Intel) Intel number one can be found by a white tower (northeast corner) on the left after the basketball court and open field area.

Opening Cutscene
Shepherd: The more things change, the more they stay the same. Boundaries shift, new players step in, but power always finds a place to rest it's head. We fought and bled alongside the Russians. We shoulda known they'd hate us for it. History is written by the victor. And here I am, thinking we'd won. But you bring down one enemy and they find someone even worse to replace him. Locations change, the rationale, the objective. Yesterday's enemies are today's recruits. Train them to fight alongside you, and pray they don't eventually hate you for it too. Same shit, different day. You know what I'm looking for Sergeant Foley. Keep your eyes open.

Foley: Got a new batch hittin the pit today, Sir. I'll send you the best I find.

Trivia

 * If you stand on the makeshift basketball court long enough a Ranger, voiced by IW's Robert Bowling, will say, "Get off the court dude." If you continue to stand there he will say, "Come on man wait your turn." And eventually, "Allen, what the Hell?"
 * S.S.D.D means "Same Shit, Different Day", derived from Stephen King's book, "Dreamcatcher". This goes along the lines of F.N.G., meaning "Fucking New Guy", in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
 * One of the spectators in the Pit is a man by the name of Cpl. Bowling. This is a reference to Infinity Ward's Robert Bowling. (The same soldier can be found in the level Of Their Own Accord)
 * U.S. Rangers can be seen playing basketball, repairing a HMMWV, on guard towers, exercising, looking at a phone, and eating chocolate. If the player gets close enough, you can hear their conversations.
 * Notice that the Afghan soldiers wear the 6-color "chocolate chip" desert battle dress uniform used by U.S. troops before the introduction of the Army Combat Uniform. In real life, the Afghan Border Police wear a 6-color BDU but with a gray splotch pattern instead of a brown pattern.
 * The Pit has evidently been used by Task Force 141 members and possibly Delta Force members, as a conversation between two soldiers refers to a group of Deltas running the course with the "movers on max speed" and "A guy with a mohawk, had some funny accent, British, I think.". It is possible, however, that the Delta Force members were actually Task Force 141 members.
 * Another conversation states that, "A guy with a mohawk rolled the course in 18.26 seconds, made our D boys look like they were moving in slow motion," and that, "Some other dude with a skull ski mask did it in 18.28 with a 1911". Obviously, it is referring to Soap and Ghost.
 * The Special Ops level The Pit is a recreation of Allen's test from this level.
 * Notice that Joseph Allen is a Private First Class and most of the locals "who spray the bullets all over the damn place" have higher ranking than Allen himself.
 * The target upstairs which the player must melee will already be popped out in Special Ops.
 * After completing Sgt. Foley's shooting test press the frag grenade button and a message will appear that says "No M2 Frag Grenades Remaining.". This is incorrect: the M67 (not the M2) is the primary Fragmentation Grenade used by the U.S. military and used in the game itself. The Mk2 was the US military's standard WWII-era grenade, whilst the M2 is the US military's standard heavy machine gun.
 * Several of the optional weapons from the Pit are never used by the Army Rangers in the game, nor are they used in real life, these include the USP .45, AA-12, AK-47, MP5K, Desert Eagle, and G18. It is possible that since the Pit test was for Task Force 141 selection that the weapons are there to see how well Allen can use weapons that he might encounter in the field.
 * When going to the Pit, walk along the fence, and notice a man eating a chocolate bar. Afterward, walk a little further down and notice a fully dressed Ranger loading his M4 magazines with rounds from a box that says ".50 Caliber" on the side. This is technically correct because there is a modification for the AR-15 series called the Beowulf which can allow it to shoot .50 caliber rounds, though they are not of the same size as .50 BMG rounds, but rather the size of a .500S&W Magnum round. However, .50 Beowulf M4s are aesthetically different from 5.56mm M4s, and the rifle the soldier is using is a regular M4.
 * A lone Mark 19 Mod 3 automatic grenade launcher can be seen on a tripod on the ground next to one of the Humvees, but this weapon is never used in-game.
 * Strangely, at the end of the level, when the wounded men arrive, none of the doors of the Humvees are open.
 * When Foley is training the locals, he is not speaking to them directly, there is a translator next to him speaking to the locals in Dari.
 * When Foley is training the locals, if you wait instead of going to the pit, one of the locals will be given a gun by Foley that appears from nowhere. The local will then proceed to use the gun and fire rounds down the range even though no targets appear for him to shoot at. Furthermore, he continues to fire indefinitely without reloading.
 * Sometimes a soldier will say "Private, have you ever seen a grown man naked?" This is another reference to the movie Airplane!.
 * In one of the conversations, a soldier is talking to a Lieutenant about an assault bridge; however, there's no Lieutenant to be found in the level.
 * If the player chooses Veteran difficulty after the Pit, then they will be asked to confirm their choice three times.
 * When Sgt. Foley has you 'spray bullets all over the range', if you use the snap feature and fire one bullet at each target from the hip, he will then say, "Private can you fire from the hip? I'm trying to make a point here!" If you continue to shoot while aiming down the weapon's sights, he will say, "Private shoot from the hip, like in the movies".
 * When Cpl. Dunn put his Desert Eagle into his leg holster, there is already a handgun in it. Furthermore, the standard sidearm of the Rangers is the M9. Why Dunn is using a Desert Eagle, which is impractical for military use for a number of reasons, is a mystery.
 * The Onion used footage from this mission to make the fake preview for Modern Warfare 3.
 * It is unknown how any of the soldiers got into the guard towers as there are no visible way of climbing into one nor a entrance
 * The Pit section of the level is the only time in the game where you can find a SCAR-H with a foregrip as an attachment.
 * The correct term for the base is Firebase Phoenix, not Fire Base Phoenix.
 * The terrain around Fire Base Phoenix in real life is very mountainous with lots of green plant life. In the game, the ground is very flat with dirt and no plant life.
 * The song "Crime Wave" by hip-hop artist 50 Cent can be heard in this level.
 * Next to the Humvee with soldiers working on it, you can see a one man army back pack laying with the tools.
 * General Shepherd can be seen observing The Pit with two other soldiers on an elevated area. Firing at him results in the message "Friendly Fire will not be tolerated." Some people used this situation to create fake videos where the credits roll when Shepherd is killed in this mission.
 * At the mission select menu, the level picture shows Dunn standing next to the boxes that he opened revealing more weapons, the MP5K is the last gun to the left although it is in the box to the right in the mission itself. The M9 is the closest gun in the box to Dunn in the actual level.
 * It´s possible to get yourself killed in this level: in the part that Sgt. Foley teaches the locals how to throw a grenade, hit the black part of the wood, the grenade will bounce back and kill you.
 * All the local soldiers carry a ammo pouch containing 6 AK-47 magazines, although they shoot with M16A4s.
 * In the cutscene before the level, a statue of Imran Zakhaev on a horse is shown. This is a possible reference to the fact that he is referred to as one of the Four Horsemen from Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare.
 * If you decide to repeat the Pit run, a new selection of weapons will be available to you, including a mini-uzi.
 * After the Pit, you can see AH-64A Apaches take-off. Although in 2016 it's a mystery why the A model is still in use after 32 years.
 * At the end of the level numerous vechicles come with wounded soldier, they have the same blood on the dashboard as when the driver is killed in Takedown.
 * During the training you can hit the targets perfectly from the hip and Sgt. Foley will still say you sprayed bullets all over the place, also if you fire wildly when looking down the sights he says "thats how you do it."
 * Almost all the soldiers in this level are in the missions set in America.
 * It's impossible to kill the enemy target that you're told to knife with bullets.
 * This mission is different depending if you have a console or PC. On console in the target range you are taught that aiming down your sights near the target will snap towards the target. On PC this does not exsist. This could because either a fault of Infinity's Wards or they consider PC's mouse aiming more accurate than console's analogue stick.
 * If you fire at a friendly soldier while leaving the shooting range, instead of "Friendly Fire Will Not Be Tolerated!" it says "UNLOCALIZED (TRAINER_MISSION_FAIL_FIRE_IN_CAMP).