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.

NIACT Week 2 Recap

Week 2 has flown by and I haven't been able to poist much due to a combination of lack of free time and (USD law'ers will appreciate this) some bastard setting up a peer-to-peer network on our wi-fi which basically hogs all the bandwidth and prevents anyone else from accessing it. It's a trick to get you to log on to their "Free Public WiFi" network so they can do all manner of nastiness to and through your computer. That has been resolved, hopefully with violence, and we're back in action.

We've been shooting a lot this week and it's been good times. I qualified on the M16 under Army standards but did not do anywhere near as well as I'd have liked. The course consists of shooting down a long range bordered by trees with pop-up targets at varying differences from 50 - 300 meters at different locations across the range. I was doing respectably on my first run when a bead of sweat ran down the inside of my glasses (which are strapped on underneath my helmet, meaning I can't take them off) directly in my line of sight, forcing me to fire underwater and costing me a few targets. Between rounds I tried to wipe it off with my glove which had some kind of schmeg on it that smeared all over my glasses and removed no moisture, so the second round turned into a massive CF and I had to settle for a less than ideal score. It's just about pride once you hit 23/40 and qualify, and I did significantly better than that, but I could have done better.

Have to run - more to come later today.



My rack (top - shitty), at the end of the day, ready for bedtime at 8PM. Waking up at 0400 every day will do that to you.



Long view of the M16 qual course.

Top 10 best days ever

Despite being one of the longest and most tiring days I've worked, yesterday was AWESOME. Begining at 0330 we spent the day firing the majority of guns in the arsenal. Did some reactive fire and the M16 stress shoot, which is a simulated attack begining in a HMMWV and ending in running across a firing range with different cover set up and engaging targets from a variety of firing positions while being berated by drill sergeants all along the way. Heavy weapons familiarization was the best. Video to follow.







Amazing.

Photo Documentation

A few pics from the last couple of days that I was unable to post last night. Internet here is atrocious. Fear the Veggie Burger. The last is the dude abiding during a perfect run on the M9 stress test this morning. I ate the bar.

Yes.

For the past two days the American tax payer has paid me a pretty good wage to crawl around in the sand and shoot a machine gun. MY machine gun.

Yes.

I can't help but feel that somehow on a grander, cosmic scale, this is cheating.

Everything I ever thought was cool is happening here. As a child I had a fixation with gas masks. That was the coolest miltary gear to me. I wanted a gas mask - bad. After years of searching I found a half broken one that never fit at a thrift store once and I'd be willing to bet that sorry POS is still in my closet somewhere. Almost by accident I now own a gas mask. I didn't even appreciate the momentous occasion about to take place the day I was issued my mask until I was a few steps away from the sizing station. It's kind of amazing/disturbing that in the midst of such a serious exercise I can find some childish joy, but I have to say that at that moment I felt like an 8 year old on post-apocalyptic Christmas morning. Here's hoping I never need the damn thing but it sure is cool to cross little Mike's wish off the list.

We've been shooting a fair amount lately with a lot more to come. Having grown up a backwoods retard I thought I was pretty good with a musket, but I've found I have some room to improve when shooting things other than discarded farm equipment and beer cans. The techincal training here has been pretty good so far. Not learning a whole lot of new stuff but the excessive practice is making me a lot better. We're moving off the fixed ranges more to pop-up targets at different distances (out to 300 meters today - drilled it. All paper terrorists wasted. Sleep tight; you're welcome) and will be doing some stress shoots starting tomorrow. A stress shoot involves donning our full battle rattle and running around some kind of physical course to get us out of breath and exhausted before we fire. Don't know how I'm going to do with that - I've been pretty sick the last few days due to allergies/living in 2000 square feet with 40 dirty dudes/no sleep. I'm on the mend but definitely still depleted. No big deal. Motivated.

Given the bureaucracy uber alles environment I'm coming out of it's been a strange thing to realize that people actually make a living doing this stuff. I'm doing things I truly enjoy for the first time... maybe ever, and it's hard to believe that after all I had to push through to get here, this is my JOB. This is FUN. I always thought it'd be better to have a job that I hate so that I'd never bring it home with me. I'm beginning to think that was an erroneous approach to career planning. If I have any regret about joining the military it's that I didn't do so sooner when I was a little better at playing the young man's game. As tired and dirty and sore as I am at the moment, I truly look forward to what is to come from this deployment.

Side note - if you are ever offered a "Veggie Burger in Barbecue Sauce" MRE, you should destroy the person making the offer.

This is my rifle. There are many like it, but this one is mine.

NIACT day two has officially come and gone and life is getting more interesting by the hour. So far it's been a lot of hurry up and wait,, a lot of standing in line, and a whole lot of "hooah," which in army talk is interpreted as meaning "everything but 'no'" and is primarily used as both a question and as the only appropriate answer to that question. Yeah.

Every step of the way we've been padded down with more and more gear - I'm up to 3 full sea bags of stuff I need, one full of stuff I was issued for some reason but don't need, and still with NBC (Nuclear, Chemical, Biological) yet to come. The "need" will all be going forward with me, most prominently my body armor and weapon issue. It's a little weird to think that the things I'm carrying and wearing around right now will be the things that may save my life or end somebody else's when I'm in theater.

My IBA (Interceptor Body Armor) is WELL worn and has obviously been there and back at least once, as have both of my weapons, so at least I'll be accompanied by some experienced gear. I'll only be taking the M9 with me from here, which is good because the M16 they issued me is crap. I'll carry a rifle as needed in Iraq, but for my day-to-day activities on base I'll only need a pistol. This is both a welcome relief and a somewhat worrisome omission.

Altogether my full "battle rattle" with weapons and ammo is somewhere between 75 and 90 extra pounds. Pretty ridiculous. I have a huge amount of respect for the guys who run around and fight in this stuff all day.

Let me see your war face!!!

After a long night and an early flight from NAS Coronado courtesy of the USMC, I have arrived at FT Jackson in South Carolina for Navy Individual Augmentee Combat Training (NIACT). I'm going to try to keep the acronym talk to a minimum, but you can see why it's easier to say NIACT than this course's actual name, which is about a 4 on the obnoxious military jargon scale... which goes to 11. Had an outstanding time in San Diego - actually got butterflies in my stomach when we hit Del Mar on the way back. Kind of miss it. It was great to see everyone I had a chance to touch base with and I'm sorry I missed some of you, but there will be an even bigger party when I get back. Of course I went out in style on Friday at the beautiful and prestigious Catalina Lounge, my favorite bar on the planet. They refinished the shuffleboard table so the raw spots are gone and it's not such a homer's field. Annalis destroyed me. Sometimes you eat the bar, and sometimes the bar... well, he eats you.

Definitely thought I was already a casualty when we attempted to land in Manhattan, Kansas to drop some people off at FT Riley. Slightly windy; pretty sure we landed sideways. I managed avoid screaming like a girl. After about about thirty seconds of silence following our eventual touchdown it was a relief to hear the rest of the plane exhale and utter a collective "Holy Shit!" and laugh off our first close call.

Most people in my group of about 300 seem to be going to Afghanistan, but I've crossed paths with a few who didn't get the memo like myself. The other TF 134 hot fills are here, and allegedly the oncoming CO, who will be my boss in Baghdad, is somewhere in the crowd. Gear issue is tomorrow at about O-dark-thirty and after that the fun begins!