Play time is over

As we've been moving through the course here we've been combining skills and tactics learned in simpler exercises earlier along the way. This is all culminating next week in our urban operations and convoy exercises, which are full scale simulations of operatins in theater complete with a mock Iraqi town and actors playing insurgents and local civilians. We'll be doing more extensive stuff like this when we reach Kuwait next week, but our first taste of the "real" thing will come on Monday.

The army has some pretty sophisticated training equipment these days. We were cycled through a few quite large simulator buildings in what is know as the Engagement Skills Trainer (EST). (that should be a working link - I'm getting the hang of this) It's basically a scary Duck Hunt. Two squads of five work in a dark room with a video wall that puts us through real life scenarios based on differing test parameters. . We carry real weapons equipped with a CO2 system to simulate recoil and a barrel-mounted laser to track where our shots hit on the screen. It's not the most realistic thing in the world, but it's very good training compared to sitting on a range shooting paper

The two scenarios we ran yesterday were night fire and shoot/no shoot. The good news is I'm shooting very accurately. I hit 32/35 targets on the night fire exercise. My score was highest, average was probably around 20, and the next behind me with 29 was none other than my new boss. The bad news is I placed some accurate rounds in a few people who probably didn't deserve to be shot during the shoot/no shoot exercise. It's designed to put your discipline to the test and just about everybody falters the first few times, but it still brought some difficult realities to bear.

My squad was manning an outpost on the wire outside of our Foward Operating Base (FOB) during a battle just outside the gate. We controlled access to the gate, so the test was determining who was friendly and should be let through and who was hostile and should be engaged. Our forward visibility was obscured past about 20 meters due to a ton of smoke in the air and people were running in and out of it all over the place. The first to come out of the smoke at us was a black SUV driven by a guy with his arm out the window. As he came closer we coulD see it was a contractor badge and we correctly let him through without firing. Next came a much stiffer test as a group of Marines came at us, weapons at the ready, carrying a few wounded with them. I believe our instructor was supposed to tell us that a patrol was in front of us in the fight, but as he failed to do that, we very nearly opened up on our own guys. Thankfully we recognized their uniforms in time and didn't fire. They approached at an all-out sprint and were covering to the rear as they went by, leading me to believe that whatever was coming after them was a threat. A few seconds later the background gunfire became quite a bit lounder and from somewhere in the smoke I heard a voice shout the infamous insurgent battle cry "Allahu Akbar." Suddenly 4 arab males ran out of the smoke straight at us looking every bit like they were about to attack us, so I popped my safety off and put two center mass controlled pairs (I shot them each twice in the chest - on purpose - that's the controlled part) on the closest two.

Before I could hit the third the lights came on, the scenario stopped, and a big grey box appeared on the screen with the phrase "JUSTIFY YOUR ACTIONS" front and center. Our instructor, a fairly intense retired army infantry soldier with significant trigger time, got in my face and asked me in his own gentle way to explain myself. With a seriously sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach I realized that I had basically nothing. I heard allahu akbar, I saw arab men, and I killed them. That was it. Nothing else. They turned out to be completely innocent and unarmed. I know all of the rules. I have made a living out of finding a way an exception or a way around them and I like to think I'm pretty good at it, but I knew right away I was done for. I fired without positive ID. If this wasn't fantasy land I'd be headed straight for the brig, probably vilified by the press, and I'd have to live with the fact that I'd shot innocent people for the rest of my life.

I've had several moments of revelation at this course that have increased my already hefty respect for combat operators but this has been the most significant. Beyond being able to move around effectively with a ton of gear on, deal with indescribable stress and discomfort, and fire weapons with precision under the worst of circumstances, there is also an extremely difficult mental task to accomplish in distinguishing friend from foe and when to shoot. Often this means our guys must wait until they are in greater danger than necessary simply to satisfy the rules. Everybody gets the benefit of the doubt until they present some verifiable evidence of hostility. I should know better, but under those circumstances I just acted. That additional moment of discipline required to wait for PID is something that I don't think will be easily acquired. It goes against every conscious desire and subconscious self preservation instinct a person has. One thing that has become infinitely clear to me is that it is absolutely impossible for anyone in this country to second guess a bad shoot/bad kill situation. A whole lot of people are up in arms about some situations involving Blackwater personnel lately, and maybe rightly so, but I doubt they'd squawk so loudly if they'd played a little Duck Hunt with me.

I was legitimately affected by that mistake. I guess that means it's good training.

Did some land navigation today - got out in the woods with a topographical map and a compass and had to reach some plot points on foot. Good fun once we got underway, but like a lot of the training here it wasn't substantial enough. Many of the sessions just brush the surface and could be a lot more effective if they were more in depth and difficult. If I need this stuff I'd like to have already had my butt kicked by it here so I'll be better equipped to give it back downrange later on. Pics coming.

Side note - I bought Johnny Cash's last album "American IV - The Man Comes Around" just before I left CA and I have to say it's amazing. Almost perfect. I take issue with some of the back-up vocals. That's a nit-picky thing to be upset about I know, but I have a lot of time on my hands and not many options to expend it. It sounds like he knew he was about to die when he recorded it so the whole record has a bit of a fatalistic feel, but it's so genuine and simple. Buy it.