The following events occur over a single day – one of those days in the military that make me tired just reading it, let alone living it -- 09FEB2006:

There are no dreams, in the field. You never wake up remembering a dream. All you remember is tossing and turning on your cot, someone else snoring so loud that they woke you up, someone coming in or going out, waking several times and wondering if it’s time to get up, yet. You never really sleep, until its time to sleep like the dead.

So began the 9th of February, 2006 – sleepless, tired from the moment we awoke, and really irritated at the guy that came into the sleeping area and yelled, “Time to get up!” Only no one got up, because it was only 0425, and he wasn’t anyone we knew. So we snoozed, hopefully, fearfully, for another five minutes, waiting to see if someone else would get the lights, and deny us those few precious minutes of sleep. Someone farted loudly. No one giggled, or even cracked a smile.

I started slowly pulling on my socks, and my boots, in the relative dark. Who ever had come in and yelled at us to get up, had been silent thereafter, and had gone to the other side of the super CONNEX we were all sleeping in on military cots. After what seemed a lifetime, one or two others started getting up, and getting dressed. Someone else finally turned the lights on – but only one or two banks of lights. Not all of us were getting up at the ass-crack of dawn.

The first order of business, was to shave, and maybe brush my fangs. To do that would require donning my gas mask, flak vest, helmet, knee and elbow pads, and then grabbing my weapon. The first order of business changed in a hurry; a morning piss was imminently more important. There were enough people still inside, that I felt comfortable stepping out; the people inside would be able to watch over the rest of our equipment.

Outside, it was cool and pleasant – although quite a few people were cursing at how cold it was. Luckily, the port-a-johns were only sixty feet or so from our super CONNEX. That early in the morning, with no light, you knock on the door to see if it’s occupied (or, like some, you just open it, to see if there’s anyone there).

It’s hard, sometimes, to find the damn buttons on your camouflage pants, elbows sticking out because of all the gear you’re wearing, flak vest in the way, brain numb from sleep deprivation. When you finally get your dick out, you realize that you chose one of those port-a-johns that had the urinal located so far back that you’ll have to lean forward at a precarious angle in order to hit it.

I returned to the super CONNEX, grabbed my personal hygiene bag, and headed for the showers – where the only sinks with running water were. Few other units seemed to be up, and there were plenty of sinks open. The tasks weren’t hard; brush fangs, use the little battery-powered electric shaver, wet the rag with some hot water. Realize the water’s hot – but it wasn’t for your shower, the night before.

As you move from the sinks back to the super CONNEX, you hear others cursing the cold. You wonder who else is up, and move more quickly to the super CONNEX to find out if your Soldiers got out of their ‘fart-sacks’ – the military nick-name for the sleeping bags. The super CONNEX is really just a corrugated metal building, all square lines and square roof, propped up on towers of cinder blocks four and five tall. The building is perhaps thirty feet by forty feet, and all open on the inside, with painted corrugated metal for the walls, and a few electrical outlets.

Your Soldiers are up, and you take a sensitive items inventory. Your female Soldier was told to report in by 0500, and she does; she’s waiting, when you get back, inside of the super CONNEX; everyone from the unit is up, already, and everyone else just stays in their fart-sacks, snoozing. Why they want to sequester the female Soldiers so far away, I don’t understand; I just deal with it, and loan them an alarm clock for such situations.

She has all her sensitive items, as does your other two Soldiers. You check the cot, and do a quick count – nine of the military night vision goggles, or NVGs, four military GPS ‘pluggers’, two Army-Navy Crytpographic Devices (or ANCDs). I checked to make sure they had all their MILES gear, too – the Army’s high-tech Laser Tag system. The MILES gear is expensive – almost as expensive as the NVGs or the weapons themselves.

That done, I release them to chow. I’ll go later, after they’ve eaten. Someone has to stay and watch over the cot full of sensitive items. Besides, while they eat, I can tidy up – helping to take cots apart and fold them up, and stack their gear along the walls. I leave one cot up, with the sensitive items on it, to give my ass a place to sit, and keep the items organized and easy-to-count. Every day at 0500 and 1700, a report goes up accounting for all the sensitive items, MILES gear, and weapons, to ensure no one has lost one in the last twelve hours.

There is a moment of irritation, as we have to figure out why we have five PLGR bags, and only four PLGRs. After some consultation among the squad leaders, it was decided that the ‘missing’ PLGR had migrated back to the office. Just prior to roll-out, someone in Commo had been using that fifth plugger to make sure the timing on the radios was good. Someone remembered something about a plugger being left out, and it being taken back to the office and secured there.

My guys got back from chow, and it was my turn. T-rations, again. Crumbly yellow egg mess covered over with the requisite hot sauce, grits which I refuse to eat, bacon, some single-serving cereal, packaged milk, fruit, and more. I can never eat it all, and try to find something to stuff into my NVG bag. I have a special bag on my vest for NVGs, but since we’re not carrying them on us, I use the bag for goodies, snacks, and other things taken from my MREs for later use.

I head back to the super CONNEX, and see that things are well-enough in hand. My crew is the last to grab their share of the sensitive items, and then we all head to the line where all our vehicles are parked. The sensitive items go into the back of the BIDS, and we begin performing our checks on our vehicles – oil levels, coolant levels, tire pressure, and most importantly, radio checks.

The BIDS – Biological Integrated Detection Suite – is the heart of our unit. Those that have been to the BIDS school gain a special identifier, making them Lima 4 (L4) personnel. The L4 crews in a BIDS can detect biological weapons when they’re employed against US or Coalition forces, from weaponized anthrax to biological toxins, the BIDS system is essentially a hard-shelled shelter on the back of a HMMWV chassis, and it trails a 15k generator.

My truck will be the support truck. It’s a cargo HMMWV with a soft-shelled back, two doors, and a light trailer full of camouflage nets, a tent, cots, and our bags. The back of the truck itself is kept relatively empty, save for some 5-gallon containers of fuel and water. Our truck will be the secondary MEDEVAC truck. If someone is injured or needs medical evacuation, we’ll be able to carry them out. I lament our lack of stretchers, but we had loaned them out to another platoon, and so did not have them for this exercise.

The morning chill was starting to get to me, so I pulled on my gloves, and continued supervising my guys in their Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services, answering questions as they come up, or working out issues. The Observer / Controllers, or O/Cs are they’re called, came over to talk with us about our routes, intended plans, and the like, while we were doing our PMCS.

The game plan, according to the briefs we had been given, was to integrate three FOX vehicles into our own platoon, and use them as gun trucks. During our platoon certifications and live-fire training, we had taken the canvas shells off of the support trucks, and installed our M249 Squad Automatic Weapons into a mount set up in the middle of the truck’s bed. In this case, instead of using the support trucks, we would use FOXs in the same role.

The FOX is a six-wheeled, 18-ton behemoth that people often mistake for one of the new Stryker vehicles. The FOX is actually a German-manufactured, armored vehicle with a 240B machine gun on it, amphibious, and best of all – capeable of using its specialized sensor suite to detect chemical weapons from several miles away. Where we can detect biological weapons, the FOX detects chemical weapons – and its much more armored than we are.

We had rehearsed, the day before, and gone over tactical procedures – what we wanted the FOXs to do in the event of an attack, how we handle snipers, IEDs, and more. We hoped that the convoy would be uneventful, but with so many O/Cs about, we had our doubts.

Checks complete, we began to stage the vehicles in the proper convoy order. One FOX would take the lead, one in the middle, just ahead of the command truck, and one FOX in the rear. We were four teams, going out, with each team being a BIDS truck and a support truck. Two teams would be dropped off at Forward Operating Base Spirit, and the other two teams would go on to FOB Forge. The FOXs would escort us the entire way, and then return to FOB Comfort – where we were at – when all was done.

The vehicles staged, we had our Convoy Brief from the LT. First Lieutenant Timothy Jenkins was the kind of platoon leader that most Soldiers enjoyed working for: approachable, easy-going, and laid back, he left a lot of the tactical work to the non-commissioned officers, and stayed out of our hair unless we were doing wrong. He was also very competent at keeping the brass off our backs, keeping us out of crazy details, and all the other good things that made a good garrison LT. He was not much of a tactical lieutenant, but he knew it, and let us make up for it when we could.

The LT had been injured, many moons ago. Some damage had been done to the bones in one foot, and being forced to continue running on it, rather than allow it to heal, had exacerbated the problem considerably. He’d had a surgery a few months ago, and had been in a special cast for awhile. He was finally in two boots, again, but had an odd gait – especially when no one was looking. Thus it was when our platoon leader brought us all around his truck.

The Convoy Brief was to succinct and to the point. We would leave FOB Comfort, head east on Route Iron, go north by way of Alternate Supply Route Chevy, head west on Route Iron until we passed ASR Ford, and then head into FOB Spirit. There, we’d drop off C and D BIDS Teams, reconsolidate and reconfigure for a smaller convoy, and then drive on. From FOB Spirit, we would continue west all the way to Avenue K, and then head south on Avenue K, go through Checkpoint 999 back onto Route Iron, and angle up into Forward Operating Base Forge. At Forge, the remaining BIDS elements would be dropped off, and then the FOXs would return to FOB Comfort.

Routes Iron and Steel were essentially one-way, so the FOXs would be making a big loop.

The O/Cs observed, and asked a few questions. We had to ensure we did proper roll-over drills, in case one of the vehicles were to tip over or roll over. Unfortunately, there isn’t much that can be done for a roll-over drill in a HMMWV, short of hope your seat-belt holds out. Due to the bulk and excess of the gear we wear, we rarely use a seat-belt anyway.

The time to drive came. The rest of my team would be behind me in the BIDS truck – Specialist Megan Day as Truck Commander, and Private First Class Douglas Coughenour as her driver. PFC Courtland Smith would be my driver. SPC Day and PFC Smith both had M203s – the usual M16A2 rifle, but with a 40mm grenade launcher on the underside. PFC Coughenour had a SAW with a collapsible butt-stock. If push came to shove, we had a decent amount of firepower – but little to no ammo.

Our platoon was not really supposed to be there during the rotation. We were an add-on, attached to another chemical company, who was assigned to a notional division that was controlling the National Guard infantry brigade we were attached to. The threat of biological and chemical weapons in Iraq is so small that no one over there wears a protective mask or keeps protective equipment with them. On top of that lack of concern was our addition to the Joint Readiness Training Center rotation at, essentially, the last moment. Because of that, no one had prepared for our coming, and no one had ammunition for us.

Our LT and one of the FOX NCOs had managed to beg some ammunition from other units, but it averaged out to only 5 rounds of M16 ammo for each of us, and perhaps 100 rounds of SAW ammo for each of our gunners. They did manage to get 100 rounds of ammo for the 240Bs, which was good – but not nearly enough.

Roll-over drills complete, we waited until the appropriate time to leave.

We had no speaker in our truck, so I had to keep my ear glued to the hand-mike. Smith had the heater running to keep himself warm. We watched, and waited the BIDS truck in front of us. I angled the mirror to see the convoy behind us.

Two months before, during an exercise, our convoy had been split in half because someone failed to watch in their rear-view mirror as the vehicles behind them got further and further away. They never did stop, and went all the way back to base without us. It was an irritating event, for the LT, and for all of us. When a situation like that comes up, do you wait for them to return? Do you go on to base camp – and hope they’re there? Do you further split the convoy up, and do both? One man’s inattention can be the near death of a group when lives are on the line.

SGT Snyder, the TC who failed to look behind him, would be kidded for the rest of his time with us. He wasn’t with us, for this particular exercise.

The time to roll came. The lead FOX rolled out, and we began to follow, one vehicle after another. Proper convoy interval for us is 50-100m, depending on dusty road conditions and what kind of opponent or environment we run into. We waited long enough to provide some sort of interval distance, and then we, too, rolled.

A 30-round magazine with only five rounds in it, went into my magazine well. Smith managed to skillfully load his magazine as well, while driving out the gate.

I often tell Smith, “Too far,” or “You’re too close,” and kid him about how bad I am for company on a drive. He takes it in good humor, and maintains a proper interval – with occasional prods from me. Smith is a laid-back kind of guy, older than most Soldiers, having joined a little later and tasted the civilian life before deciding to give the Army a try.

I hope for a long, uneventful drive. One of the O/Cs, a SSG Smith from 13th Chemical Company out of Fort Hood, Texas, assured me that there would be plenty of action during our convoy.

Unfortunately, the first action we saw was not what we were hoping for from JRTC. The FOX platoon that had been assigned to escort us was… green. Virtually the entire crew was new, and the few experienced NCOs among them were told to hold back and let the newer ones learn by experience. The lead FOX’s Tactical Commander was a former Airman who was ‘shaky, at best’ on his land navigational skills.

The LT came up over the net, and said to turn around – SGT King had missed the right turn. Turning around the ungainly BIDS trucks with their 5k generator trailers is not an easy task, and in the uneven terrain, it became time-consuming.

We finally got back on the right track, made the right turn, and continued on our way. Soon, though, we realized that something was wrong. Again, the LT came up over the net, telling the lead FOX he had missed a turn. This time, the LT was cursing mad, and sad some rather insulting things.

Time went on, as we resumed the convoy, taking twists and turns in the back-country roads of Louisiana’s Fort Polk and JRTC. Again, the convoy had made a wrong turn, and had to turn around. This time, though, we had a hitch. Smith under-estimated the required turning radius for his truck, and I had to get out and help ground-guide him, backing it up carefully with a trailer.

I’m not that good with a trailer, myself, and ground-guiding one is twice as difficult when you’re sleep-deprived, and one hand is stuck holding your M16. It took us awhile, but we finally got the support truck turned around, and headed in the right direction. While my BIDS truck turned around, and a FOX pulled rear security to protect the convoy route for us while we turned, I looked at the rest of the convoy.

They were gone.

Someone had pulled a SGT Snyder. The rest of the convoy had gone off and left us. It was just my team, and one FOX.

I sighed, and shook my head in disbelief. When we were ready, we headed up the road a bit, around the bend, hoping the rest of the convoy would be there. When they weren’t, I stopped us, and jogged back to the FOX. I asked their TC to take point for us, since they were armored and we weren’t. Unfortunately, their TC didn’t know where they were any more than I did.

My old Magellan 300 hadn’t even picked up its first satellite, so I had Coughenour get the plugger out the back of his BIDS, while everyone pulled security. Smith was dismounted, and watching the front with his M203, while Day watched out to one side. I switched Day with Coughenour, because he had a SAW, and could bring more firepower to bear if we were ambushed right then.

My map was in my assault pack, in the back of the support truck. Drawing it out took time – time which we didn’t have, if the rest of the convoy was rolling without us. I’d tried to raise someone – anyone – on the radio, and gotten only the FOX that was with us.

While I waited on the plugger, one of the O/Cs suggested I use the local reference – a sign for Water Crossing 11. The US Geological Survey map didn’t have any of the water crossings labeled by name, and based off of a remark one O/C made, I suspected that the O/Cs had a Fort Polk special that did, indeed, have the water crossings marked – but because of the game’s rules, couldn’t let us look at it.

Another radio check failed. I jogged back to the FOX, and asked them to take the lead for armored reasons. I told their TC that as soon as we hit an intersection, we’d stop and use the map and the PLGR to find out what was going on.

We made way for the FOX in the rear to shift to the front, and then we were off, again. Within a half a klick, we stopped at an intersection. I didn’t even have time to pull out the plugger, before another FOX and a support truck rolled up to the intersection. The rest of the convoy had finally figured out that something was wrong, and sent Staff Sergeant Marcus George back to get us. With SSG George there to escort us, I could let Smith drive, pull out the plugger, and try to figure out where the hell we were. No luck; the roads we were on weren’t on the map, but I had a general idea, because of the grid coordinates. We were way off-course, northeast, even, of where we were supposed to be.

The convoy pulled itself together, and started heading in more or less the right direction, after the LT got onto the lead FOX a time or two.

We found Route Steel, and started heading the right direction. It didn’t look any different than any of the other back-country roads out there, unlike FOB Steel, which was a hard-ball road. Before long, though, we ground to a halt. Another convoy was ahead of us, and they were stopped., blocking the road.

The LT went up to investigate, while the rest of us pulled into a boxed formation, and guarded the sides of the road. I put Coughenour out to the side opposite the FOX behind us, and had Smith and Day guard the same side as the FOX. There was dense thicket on both sides of the road, but the greater threat was from the right, where Coughenour was and the FOX wasn’t.

Coughenour’s a sharp kid – keen eyes, a fast and tactical mind, and the resilience of youth that I vaguely remember from ten or fifteen years ago. He had already built himself up a bit of camouflage with heaps of pine needles, and was positioned behind a tree that let him look down into a small gulley filled with deadfall. The deadfall was a concern – and so was the hill rising up to his left. It would have been best to put someone up on top of the hill, but that would have pushed them so far out that if they’d gotten into trouble, then help would have been a long time arriving. I kept Coughenour close, even though he had a poor position at the base of the hill.

While we waited, the O/Cs walked about, talking with people, advising, asking about our tactical situation. I worried that the O/Cs would contact the Oppositional Forces, and let them know where we were. It was a bad situation, and could easily turn into a kill zone. We remained hypervigilant, waiting for the enemy to attack.

I talked with one of the O/Cs, later, and learned that the OPFOR team was independent of the O/Cs, and the two had little if any contact with one another. This meant that many of the OPFOR attacks were as much a surprise to the O/Cs as they were to us.

Time rolled on. I kept moving back and forth, between Coughenour, Smith, and Day, checking on them, seeing if they needed some relief or were doing good, or had seen anything. I relieved Day long enough for her to get in a quick smoke break. I shared M&Ms from an MRE I’d had the day before, with Coughenour. Time drug on.

Eventually, we learned that the convoy ahead of us had spotted a potential Improvised Explosive Device, and that the Explosive Ordnance Detachment was en route. And we continued to remain alert, waiting for OPFOR.

An hour passed. The LT called for me. He wanted me, and three other Soldiers, to head up to the other convoy, link up with them, and help them keep eyes-on on the suspected IED. The FOXs – call sign Pathfinder – gave up two Soldiers, and the LT gave up me and PFC Emily Skoglund. I gathered the other three Soldiers up, and we headed on up to the lead FOX. There, our liaison from the other convoy was waiting.

Like most on the JRTC rotation, he was with the Minnesota National Guard, preparing for a rotation to Iraq. He had new equipment – M4 carbines, the new Army Combat Uniform, Interceptor Ballistic Armor with plates, the lighter helmets, and so on. Our guys – active duty Soldiers – were still using M16A2s with the long butt-stock and long barrels, old-school flak vests, and harnesses that hadn’t changed since before the Vietnam War.

The liaison walked with us up the road away, and across a small bridge, to where two up-armored HMMWV’s had their .50 calibre machine guns pointed up the road. He loaned me some binoculars, and I could see a green box of some sort, partially obscured by the road. They and their convoy had been en route to FOB Spirit, when they’d spotted the box laying by the side of the road. They’d pulled off and kept anyone from coming up the road from our side, but they were worried about another convoy trying to go down the road from the other side.

He wanted us to skirt the IED through the woods, and come up from the other side – just the four of us, in our out-dated equipment, versus his squad in their newer equipment. We were 74D’s – Chemical Operations Specialists. He and his bunch were 11B’s – Infantry. On top of that, we had no hand-held radios or man-packs to provide us with communications. If something were to happen on the other side, no one would know about it.

Worse, Skoglund was a walking wounded. This was the first time I’d seen her in full battle-rattle. Her knee had finally healed up enough to allow her to wear her gear, after three months of therapy and healing. If one of us were injured, then Skoglund would definitely not be carrying us out.

The other two guys, PV2 Sanders and SPC Brent Theriot (if memory serves) were fair-sized guys, and I didn’t know them very well. Therioze had had some MOUT training, before, and I used that as a basis for our new team designation. I had him be the One man, with Skoglund as Two, myself as Three, and Sanders as Four.

We headed off through the woods, vying slowly but surely towards the IED while still trying to keep it safely distant, all the while looking for the OPFOR that I knew was out there. Real-world, I’d’ve never taken the mission. It was practically a suicide mission. At JRTC, though, I could afford to take a chance, and learn something from it.

While we had been waiting, I’d plotted our position on the map, according to the plugger’s readings. We were within spitting distance of FOB Spirit. If we ran into serious trouble, then help would be soon in arriving. I should have realized that that meant the enemy would keep a healthy distance, during the daylight hours.

Our way was unopposed by OPFOR, but opposed by Momma Nature. Several gullies were in our way, each of them ten to fifteen feet in height. We had to get down one steep side without slipping, One man pulls security at the bottom, while Two man crawls up to the top, and pulls security there, so Three man can relieve One man, and Four man can finally get up. It’s a choreographed ballet, using Four-man tactics – silent, quiet, beautiful, and deadly.

No sign of OPFOR, after the first gully, or the second, or the third. Skoglund was pretty winded, but holding up. Theriot and Sanders were doing all right. I was burning up. Flak vests trap a lot of body heat.

When we came up out of the third gully, we held our positions for a bit. Apparently, there was a building at the top of the gully – one of the sheet-metal buildings used in abundance out at JRTC. We popped our heads up, and noted that beyond the building, was an entire village.

We estimated fifteen to twenty individuals, tending goats, a flock of geese, and using a mechanized tiller to plant a garden. Perhaps a half-dozen of them were women, with no children about. There were three house-sized buildings – one with its doors and shutters closed – and another couple of the smaller shed-sized sheet-metal buildings like the one we crouched behind.

I figured there was no way we could remain hidden, and accomplish our mission at the same time, so I took the One man position, and had the rest follow as I boldly strode out of the gully. If any of the villagers took note, then they gave no outward signs.

One small road from the village intercepted Route Steel, and we kept a healthy distance from the suspected IED, while simultaneously watching the village for trouble. Real World, it would’ve been nerve-wracking. It was still nerve-wracking, thinking that if any insurgents popped their heads out of the building with the closed shutters, or strode out from behind a building, that we were toast, and had no way to contact anyone.

Since Theriot and Sanders were from the same platoon, and more familiar with one another, I posted them along Route Steel, hidden on the sides of the road. Their mission was to prevent anyone from getting closer to the suspected IED, but until or unless there was traffic, to keep themselves well-hidden from OPFOR and the villagers.

Skoglund and I were the bait, holding the easy road from the village to Route Steel, standing in plain sight of the villagers, nodding to them as they went by within fifty feet or so. For the most part, we chatted non-challantly, though I kept an eye towards the IED’s position.

At one point, I left Skoglund to hold the bait position, and moved towards Therioze and Sanders’ positions. I stood in the middle of the road, easily visible, and used my mini-binos to study the IED. Three-hundred meters behind me, on Route Steel, I could see bright orange road barriers, but no guards or signs to indicate why they were across the road. As close as we supposedly were to Spirit, I had my suspicions, but couldn’t leave my tiny complement behind to investigate.

My binos indicated rather clearly that the object in question was Not an IED, and I had no way to relay this information back to the Infantry convoy on the other side, or even my own convoy. Earlier in the day, there had been a mortar or one-five-five round found in the vicinity, according to the Infantry guys’ leader – but I couldn’t see it, and had no way to ask for follow-on advice.

I returned to Skoglund, and held my ground, waiting.

Time passed. The villagers ignored us. Several vehicles rolled by on Route Steel – but none of them had MILES gear on the vehicles, indicating that they didn’t really exist for the purposes of the exercise. Just across the road from the IED was a large helipad, and several times a Huey would come in to pick someone up or take them away. Therioze indicated that one of those trips had been a three-star general that ‘did not exist’ in JRTC’s game. All of the Hueys had big orange stripes along the bottom, indicating that they were O/C choppers.

Some time after a non-existent lunch, since we had no MREs, things changed a bit. A platoon of dismounted infantry was walking into the village from the direction of the barricades. With them was a ‘non-existent’ camera crew, and an interpreter.

Skoglund and I held our ground for a bit, and then I had Skoglund go get Therioze and Sanders out of their hide-spots. The last thing I wanted was a friendly-fire kill, with the infantry thinking Sanders and Therioze were insurgents hiding on the edge of the village. We four were the only people out there in woodland camouflage.

The woodland camouflage of the ‘old Army’ blended in at JRTC very well. The newer Army Combat Uniforms were too light and too gray to blend in well. They were a compromise of woodland, urban, and desert uniforms – and that meant they didn’t blend in all that well with any environment. Our older uniforms, though, blended in just fine with the Louisiana woods.

Skoglund returned – Theriot and Sanders plainly visible on the roadway, by then, their US flags visible even at that distance. Skoglund and I held our ground, waiting for the infantry crew to get closer. When we did, we held them back from the IED, and explained the situation to them. The information was relayed to their platoon sergeant, and also to the villagers, through the Army interpreter.

We waited a bit with the infantry guys, before I asked if they had commo support with them. They did, and had a guy with a man-pack radio on him. Their platoon sergeant gave let me use their radio for a bit, though his troop was done with their patrol, and was eager to return to Spirit – which, as I’d suspected, was just a few hundred meters away – hidden by the woodline.

It took awhile to explain things to the LT, when I got him on the horn. He and our platoon sergeant seemed to think that we were still just ahead of them, co-located with the other convoy. In truth, we were hundreds of meters further up the road, with no support (save Lady Luck) and no idea what was happening with the rest of the convoy. After a long and repeated conversation, while the grunts impatiently waited to get out of there, I got enough through to the LT to make him understand that he didn’t understand the situation.

The infantry platoon was going to leave a squad of guys near the orange barricades, and I asked if Theriot and Sanders could wait there with them, to help block off traffic against the IED. They agreed, and then I let the two Pathfinder guys know what was going on. Skoglund and myself were going to go back to the other infantry convoy – the guys that had originally called the IED in – and talk with them, before heading back to talk with the LT face-to-face. At least, that was the plan.

Skoglund and I abandoned our position guarding the roadway, trusting to the interpreter to get across ‘possible IED’ to the villagers. The return trip wasn’t hard, but Skoglund was definitely out of shape.

When I got back to the hard-shelled infantry trucks, I had a talk with their squad leader. EOD had been promising to move out for hours, and the Deputy Brigade Commander – the Lieutenant Colonel that was with them – was getting a bit irate. He had been on his way to a meeting at 1000 hours, and it was, by then, nearly 1430 hours.

The squad leader let me borrow his radio, and I called back to the LT. I don’t think he ever understood just how cut off we were, but seemed to understand everything was in control, and that Theriot and Sanders were with another infantry squad further up the road, on the other side of the suspected IED. I’d explained what I saw to the local squad leader, but he said it didn’t matter – the earlier reports of a 155mm artillery shell being rigged up as an IED were still valid, and he wasn’t going to take any chances.

A 155mm High Explosive artillery shell had a kill radius of 50m – meaning that everything within 50 meters of one, when it went up, was dead. Shrapnel and concussive damage would be felt even further out. I couldn’t blame him for not taking any chances.

We continued to wait a bit longer. I was getting hungry, but my water was still holding out. Skoglund was still good, too, and I’d made sure Sanders and Therioze had plenty of water, before I left them with the infantry.

Several higher-ranking O/Cs came by to ask just what was going on. One of them wanted a good look at the suspected IED – but a loading truck was in the way. An eighteen-wheeler was sitting on the IED, and the observation tower for the helipad was being loaded onto the truck by a forklift it had brought out. The whole situation was almost comical, if not for its deadly earnest teaching intent.

The LT indicated on the radio that there were quite a few convoys backed up behind ours – as many as three more convoys, all waiting, sitting ducks for an insurgent ambush, with no way to withdraw or pull out.

Suddenly, a Warlock device arrived, from nowhere. The device apparently jams radio frequencies, such that radio-controlled IEDs cannot operate. I don’t know if the O/Cs decided that the Warlock came out of nowhere, or if EOD finally sent it, since they couldn’t seem to get there within four or five hours’ time.

With the Warlock active, the convoys were safe to maneuver through. I called back to the LT, and let him know it was safe to move. He would, in turn, indicate to the following convoys that it was safe to move. As they came by our position – since the infantry and the Warlock had to remain in place – they would pick me and Skoglund up, and then move on to pick up Therioze and Sanders.

The first FOX finally rolled by, and I stopped it, and the vehicles behind it, so I could explain to the TC that Sanders (whom had come from his vehicle) and Theriot (from another FOX) were not with us, but up ahead either along the road or at the orange barriers. The TC understood, and the convoy rolled on from there. Sort of.

After the first FOX and the first BIDS team, no one came around the bend. No one followed over the bridge. I rolled my eyes, and shook my head. We were doing it again.

Another long minute passed, and my team finally appeared. I got in with Smith, and Skoglund waited for the rest of the convoy to pass. I looked in my mirror, and Coughenour and Day were behind us in the convoy line. The radio was quiet, so I radioed back to the LT that we might want to go slow, until we could verify that we had picked up all of our guys. I’d hate to leave one or two behind because were in a hurry to finally get moving after all those hours of sitting there. Word came by radio from the last FOX in the line that we’d picked everyone up.

I asked Smith if he’d had lunch, and he said, “Yeah,” and he’d had an MRE. Lucky stiff. I was running on fumes, myself.

The convoy rolled past the village, hooked around the orange barricades and through a small re-route, and then we were there – in, and rolling through the main entrance to Forward Operating Base Spirit. The guards made us wait for the ‘punch ticket’ from the LT – a list of vehicles and personnel, and permission from the last FOB’s ‘mayor’ for the convoy itself to happen.

When my unit had been in Kuwait, pulling security there, we’d come to quickly realize that you couldn’t deny entrance onto a military installation, by military personnel. No matter the paperwork requirements, no matter the local commander’s policies, no matter the mayor’s regulations – you always had to get a convoy in as quickly as possible, without compromising security. Otherwise, the convoy outside is a sitting duck.

The 34th Infantry Division (National Guard, Heavy Infantry) personnel that were there, hadn’t apparently gotten to that stage of learning. So we waited on our LT to hobble up to the lead of the convoy, present his punch ticket, and then for the guards to wave us on through.

The TCs dismounted, so that we could safely walk our vehicles in without the drivers running over someone, or hitting any of the equipment. Space was tight, but we managed to get most of the convoy turned around. Spirit was where the C and D teams would stay, and so Sergeant First Class Brian Poole, our platoon sergeant (or Toon Daddy) set off to find the camp’s mayor, and get the two teams situated.

Because we were so far behind on time, things were rushed, and the new convoy built in a hurry. The second FOX would no longer be between the B and C teams, just ahead of the LT – but would instead be between A and B teams, just ahead of the LT.

One of the FOX TC’s, a SGT Branscum, came to us with a map and some intel. He indicated two places along the road, where an IED had been sighted around 1000 hours, and where a sniper had been emplaced by the enemy along a wall, at around 1400 hours. In both cases, four-man teams had been seen, so we would have to keep our eyes peeled for trouble.

The time to roll finally came, and again the punch ticket was needed before we could roll out. Once things were squared away, the word to roll was given, and we started to ground guide our vehicles out to the gate.

By then, I was sleep-deprived, hungry, and ready to call it a day – and our day was only half-over, if we were lucky.

The next few miles were a blur. The road occasionally went through a cut-through in the hills, but otherwise could have been any gravel road, anywhere in Louisiana. At least the PLGR next to me, and the map, indicated we were heading in the right direction, along the right route.

Another cut-through came up, and suddenly I heard small arms fire from off to the left. A grenade was throwing out white smoke on the side of the road, and we slowed down a bit, as small arms fire rained down on us – one, perhaps two guns.

Our protocol for a sniper attack was to run like hell, and call it up to higher. Our protocol for an IED was to run like hell, and reconsolidate what we could, a few hundred meters down the road, unless there were casualties. Several days earlier, we had been told by the O/Cs that a lot of units like to run from IEDs, and the O/Cs have to flag them down, put them back into the positions from which they were hit, and make them play the game – instead of just running away and hoping the O/Cs didn’t notice.

Was a smoke grenade an IED? That had never been covered in our instructions. Was it just a smoke grenade, or was it part of the game, where we had to pretend it was something else? I hadn’t a clue, and so – like with most things I do – I played it safe, and had Smith slow down just past the smoke grenade, and then stop.

Smith’s MILES gear beeped, and then was silent. I would later learn that this meant he was dead. On the newer MILES gear, it just beeps once. On the older gear, it beeps once for near misses, and beeps continually if you’re dead. I thought Smith had taken a near miss, so told him to lean back and remain invisible from the snipers; perhaps they would think he had been hit already.

I got out, with Day and Coughenour getting out of their vehicles, their BIDS truck pulled up close to ours for cover fire. From between the two vehicles, we could cover ourselves against a few snipers and insurgents, and put up cover fire. The FOX had turned sideways, somehow, in the narrow defile, and was actively engaging the sniper when he could see him. It felt good to hear the 240B light up, and I knew the bastards were toast.

Smith monitored the net from his hidey position. If he’d gotten out, he would’ve been nailed by the sniper, though the sniper seemed intent on taking out someone on the FOX. Why the hell wasn’t the sniper dead, yet?

The LT’s truck and the middle FOX had pulled back to give us a hand, but the O/Cs just stood around, observing. No worries. I ordered everyone back into the vehicles, once the sniper fire had cut off, and told everyone to get out of there. I gave cover fire long enough for Day and Coughenour to get into their vehicles, and then hopped into mine. I reached for the hand-mike, and shoved it into my ear.

Someone in the FOX was telling the LT that the FOX’s TC and one other were dead.

The FOX’s driver was still alive, and so all three of us scrambled out of that kill zone as quickly as we could.

Just down the road from us was a large building – three CONNEXs high and three deep, built like a pyramid. It was swarming with infantry, several hard-shelled humvees, and even several M2A2 Infantry Fighting Vehicles known as Bradleys. We stopped on the road just in front of the ‘palace’, forming up into a box position on the roadway.

The infantry were already shifting their fire away from the road, such that they didn’t have their weapons pointed at us. I had Day and Smith take the side of the road away from the compound, and stay close to the vehicles for support and cover. The wood line was too close for comfort.

Of the four personnel on my team, only Coughenour was a Combat Lifesaver (CLS). I told him to grab the CLS bag, and head for the FOX, after the LT started yelling for his CLS personnel. LT and SFC Poole were already at the FOX, taking stock of the damage.

Coughenour had to stop and retrieve the CLS bag from the back of the locked BIDS truck. The LT noted that the CLS bag should have been far more accessible to the CLS personnel, and yelled, “Failure to do proper PCCs!” as he went by, going from FOX to command truck and back.

The O/Cs were on hand to assess the situation, and determine the status of the two that were ‘dead’. When the MILES gear goes off, it’s not necessarily a sure kill. The O/Cs had issued each of us a small, sealed envelope with a ‘casualty card’ inside of it. Only on direction from an O/C were we to open the envelopes, and that would determine our status, when our MILES gear beeped to indicate a hit.

The FOX’s TC, Sergeant Branscum, was wounded, and so was one of his personnel, a Private Pinkerton. My truck was the alternate evac vehicle, and we prepped the back quickly for SGT Branscum. Pinkerton would remain inside of the back of the FOX, as it had enough room for one person to lay out in, in the back.

Since we had no stretchers, we man-handled SGT Branscum into the back of my truck, sliding him in on one of the bench-seats. We had no straps with which to secure SGT Branscum to the bench seat, and so Private West hopped into the back of our truck to stay with him, and stabilize him.

Somehow, it never occurred to us to toss West the CLS bag, so that he could run an IV to his patient, or anything else. All West could do was keep SGT Branscum’s knees bent to help prevent shock, and hold SGT Branscum onto the bench seat, laying down.

The immediate situation taken care of, we got back into our vehicles, and rolled out again. The world seemed to pass in a blur. The hand-mike to my ear, I kept a wary eye out for more OPFOR, while listening to the radio chatter. Up ahead, the convoy halted for a moment as they identified a grenade-like device in the middle of the road. It was at about the coordinates SGT Branscum had given us for the IED that was spotted around 1000 hours.

The LT wanted us to back up the convoy, and give the lead elements a few hundred meters space. We quickly hopped out, and started to ground guide our trucks back. The FOXs, with no trailers attached, had an easy time backing up. Coughenour was a decent driver, and instinctively backed his truck and trailer up at a good clip.

Smith and I were not so good with a trailer, and we had to work at getting our truck to back up at all, let alone quickly. Smith quickly got frustrated with my ground guiding instructions, and I quickly got frustrated with his driving. I yelled for Coughenour to come up and take over for Smith, and let my driver know it was nothing personal – we both needed practice with trailers.

Coughenour quickly backed up the truck, trailer attached. He freaked out for a moment, because he kept hearing what he thought was an O/C giving him ground-guiding instructions, and he had sworn there was an O/C’s humvee in the way of where he was backing up. West, from the back of the truck, was helping direct him, and it took Coughenour a bit to figure it out.

We barely managed to back up 50m, before the LT made the decision to just go around the IED. Everyone mounted back up, again, and we took off.

I could see what looked like a smoke grenade, standing in the middle of the road, and slightly on top of a rise as we approached. All the other vehicles were swerving just off of the road to avoid the grenade-like IED, but not Smith. I had to yell at him to get his attention, and we nearly ran over the device, but managed to avoid it.

None of us had slept worth a crap in that damned super CONNEX; it had amplified noise and vibration considerably, and it was a wonder we slept at all on those military cots. We were all tired, and 0430 seemed a long time ago.

We continued west down Route Steel, and I occasionally asked West how the patient was doing. He said the patient was stable, and doing fine.

SGT Branscum’s casualty card said that he couldn’t speak, was non-ambulatory, and some other details I never caught, so he just took a quick nap in the back of the truck. Lucky bastard. Lucky because of my mistake, in having Smith slow down, instead of just gunning it through that sniper’s ambush.

We came out to Avenue K, which was a north-south hard-ball road. I used it to leave post, whenever we were going out to Alligator Lake, and sometimes when I wanted to leave post towards Alexandria, Louisiana. We turned south, in the direction of the checkpoints, and the guards waved us through without any trouble.

Once on Avenue K, we had an easy trip down to Checkpoint 999 – the main entry into JRTC’s ‘Box’. At Checkpoint 999, we turned back onto Route Iron, and its hard-ball road. From there, we could see the goat pens on our right, and on the left, the air-strip from which helicopters were landing and taking off.

FOB Forge was based around that airstrip, and so it was a quick turn off of the road, and we were there. We stayed in our vehicles, instead of dismounting, even after the LT provided the much-needed punch-ticket. As we passed him, he reminded us to find a medic station.

Once inside, we had to just follow the people ahead of us, though I told Smith to keep an eye out for the red cross of the medics. He spied one on the side of a building we had once used for Military Operations in Urban Terrain (MOUT) training. I quickly dismounted, and ran in to ask directions to the casualty collection point. The medics inside gave me directions, and I took them, ground-guiding Smith at a jog further up the road, to the right, and then to the medics.

A medic was already waiting for us, and helped to ground-guide Smith in. He cut the corner too soon, and ran over a stake or a sign – I don’t remember which – but we ignored that, and got him in next to the collection of tents that were the medic’s triage point.

The last FOX in our convoy pulled up beside us, and I helped direct the medics as to which vehicles had what. Pinkerton was off-loaded from her FOX in a hurry – and then taken around to another entrance in the multitude of tents that made up the aid station.

West couldn’t supply the medics with any data on the patient – blood pressure, pulse, or even an IV status. Due to the nature of the game, we weren’t sure if he’d been given an intravenous solution or not, since we hadn’t done it in reality. The medics decided ‘not’, but managed to unload him, and decided he was stable enough once they had his casualty card in hand.

SGT Branscum was treated on some wooden floorings right outside the entrance. A real IV was started, and he lay strapped to the stretcher. We made sure he had his weapon and equipment, and I had to quickly crawl into the FOX to get Pinkerton’s weapon and equipment, so that it could be arranged on her cot, wherever it was. I handed her helmet and M203 to a medic who asked for it, and she quickly disappeared into the side of the tents.

Once the initial excitement was over with, I could only stand there, and be available. Eventually, questions were asked. “How do you pronounce his name?” Brans-scum. “What unit is he with?” 51st Chemical Company. “The other soldier you came in with – what was her name?” Private Pinkerton. “Is that a Stryker?” No, it’s a FOX. “What battalion are you with?” Uh… I couldn’t tell them, for the life of me, what battalion we were attached to, so I told them to stick with 51st Chemical Company as their unit of origin.

I asked one of the medics, a major, to check up on Pinkerton, and he said he would – but he never returned. Once the E7 that was working with SGT Branscum was done with him, I asked her about Pinkerton, and she said she’d check on her.

Word was, SGT Branscum would probably make it, and he’d be evacuated – or evacced, in the Army – to another site for further medical treatment. He was loaded up on an ambulance, fourth one in, and sent on his way. I had borrowed two books from the guy, back when I’d lived in the barracks four months prior, and told him he’d better live long enough to get em back. I was tired of carrying around Machiavelli and Gilgamesh in my truck.

I finally found out what had happened to Private Pinkerton. Because there had been no one with her in the back of the FOX, and she was unstable, it was assumed that she died in route. Pinkerton was dead, in game terms. The medic informed me that it was critical her unit re-order another soldier to replace her, since that was the only way to get Pinkerton back.

When a Soldier dies at any of the Training Centers in the Army, they’re sent on to Mortuary Affairs, as if they they had truly died, and from there, they go to a holding area. Units that lose Soldiers in the real world have to request replacements, and the soonest available replacements are sent into that theatre of operations to a replacement company, to be sent on to whatever units need them. In Pinkerton’s case, it might be a day or so before she arrived at her new duty station, to replace a Pinkerton that had been killed within the unit. It was a weird situation, but it helped unit’s go through the paperwork necessary to take care of fallen Soldiers, and get replacements for those that had died, to keep the unit at combat strength.

Of course, I was to blame for Pinkerton’s death, only everyone seems to think it was the FOX’s fault for stopping – it being easier to blame everything on another unit, than look within our own unit.

I managed to find my truck in the chaos, and hop back in, though I have no idea how. Smith drove, and I TC’d, as we wound our way through FOB Forge to our set-up area.

FOB Forge centered around the airstrip. The brigade that was rotating through JRTC was from the 34th Infantry Division (National Guard), and consisted of one brigade of heavy infantry, and one brigade of light infantry. The light infantry brigade was actually a round-out unit for the 101st Airborne Division, and was therefore Air Assault. The light infantry brigade therefore had a battalion of assault-transport helicopters, the venerable UH-60 Hueys – and a squadron of Apache attack helicopters.

We wound our way along the air strip to an area on one corner, near an empty guard tower, and right next to several lanes that had been placed in an open area, by means of the ever-present white engineering tape. The lanes served as staging areas for convoys heading out, and allowed them to get their punch tickets prepped before rolling out.

We were to set up right behind the staging area, in a spot that was big enough for one BIDS team to set up comfortably – or two to set up next to one another, wondering why the hell they were being set up there.

I didn’t know anything about BIDS setup, and managed to learn that the site was horrible for us, for it was right up against the wood line. Any airborne germs or biological weapons would likely go right over the trees and out onto the airstrip, and our detector levels might not reach critical thresholds. On top of that, determining wind direction was hard, and we wound up setting up with our noses into the woods, with only triple-strand concertina wire between us and them.

It was perhaps 1730, and the LT wanted us up and operational by 2000. We dropped the generators where we wanted them, moved the BIDS trucks up, dropped their camouflage nets, and so on.

On the way in, vehicle 402 had pulled out of the convoy, smoke pouring from under it, and some liquid visibly falling from its engine compartment. It turned out that Specialist Day was still there with 402, and one of the other vehicles had gone to tow her back.

Day had the keys to our BIDS truck.

We did what we could, and then sent people over to help 1st Squad’s BIDS truck set up. The rest of the FOXs began to line up in preparation for their return to FOB Comfort.

The LT’s truck, 402, finally showed up, with Day at the wheels. We got the keys from her, and started in on the rest of our set up. 1st Squad had already set up, and sent their guys on to chow, while we continued to work, irritated with SSG Hall and his crew for not staying to help us, after we had helped them. The work got done, though, and I let my guys go to chow. The only thing we hadn’t done was set up our OE-254 antenna, and between the convoy stack lanes and the limited space, I wanted to wait on that.

With my squad at chow, I helped get the LT’s tent set up. Specialist Gleason was our mechanic for the trip, and also helped serve as the LT’s radio operator. He’d never set up a tent quite like the LT’s, but the ‘sick-ups’ (as the acronym is pronounced) was very familiar to me from my days with the 172nd Chemical Company, as their Training NCO. The LT and SFC Poole got back in time to help with the finishing touches on the tent, and to give me further guidance on our mission.

I think I finally got to eat something, too. I know I had dinner, though what it was or when I ate it is beyond me.

The rest of that night is a blur. I don’t remember much. The Powers That Be wanted us to work from 2000 to 0800 each night, although our operations worked better from 1800 to 0600. We were a little late on our opening report, but managed to get it in before 2100. Day – the only female to remain with us at FOB Forge – would be staying with the other females on Forge, well away from us. She borrowed my portable alarm clock, and I gave her a hand getting her bags out there. The chemical liaison between 51st Chem and the brigade was there on Forge with us – as was the Brigade TOC – and as another female, she helped Day get situated.

Our sleeping area was in one of four huge tents that easily fit over a hundred Soldiers on cots. The dining facility – or D-Fac – was right next door, as were the showers and water facilities. For us guys, nothing was more than a few minutes’ walk away. Day would have a farther distance to go, and with her foot still recovering, would have a difficult time of things.

Somehow, we decided on shifts, and went to work. I had first shift with Coughenour, Day to come on at 0200 with Smith.

I sat in the back of the BIDS with Coughenour, as he explained a lot of our work in the truck. Maybe. I don’t remember, now, if we were first shift, or second. Seems like the joes took pity on my tired mind, and sent me to bed, first, but I’m not sure, anymore. It was only four or five days ago, now, and I can’t really remember.

When I finally did go to sleep -- whenever that was -- I laid my sleeping mat down, and then my sleeping bag, and then my woobie. A poncho-liner is a quilted blanket of camouflage, referred to even by hard-core Army Rangers as a woobie. When laced into a rain-proof plastic poncho, the poncho’s infrared reflective capabilities coupled with the air-retention of the woobie make it a fine sleeping device for a tired Soldier. You can wrap up in one like a burrito, and so long as there’s some sort of protection from either the cold ground or a cold wind up under your cot, you can sleep warmly in even the most miserable of circumstances.

I woke up during one National Training Center rotation in Fort Irwin, California, in the midst of a snow flurry. I’d been sleeping in just my uniform and my woobie, with my track as a wind-break, and still woke up quite warm and toasty. I always take my woobie to the field with me, though my bones are starting to ask for the sleeping bag for additional padding against the brutally hard cots.

I have a little camouflage pillow that I pack with me everywhere, but just about anything will do for a pillow, in the field. My last act before passing out is to tie a camouflage bandanna over my eyes. It was a trick I learned at NTC, working nights; it was the only way I could sleep in the glare of the desert sun, and has served me well in times when the lights don’t go off when I want them to.

Thus ended a crappy day – D-Day for this JRTC rotation. I sit now, finishing this up at D+4 or so, trying hard not to count down the days until we’re out of the box. Sitting in this chair, leaning at an angle, has put my butt to sleep. Think I’ll go stretch my legs, and let Day snooze. Tomorrow – or rather, later this morning – we jump again, this time to FOB Anvil. I hope this jump goes a lot smoother than the last.

These are some fine Soldiers, going through every bit as much as I, from sleep deprivation to food deprivation, hard work in unfamiliar environments, units like the 34th Infantry Division that don’t give a crap about our mission, and more. I look forward to serving out the remainder of my time in the military with such Soldiers, but I know I need to get away from them, and soon.

Short Timer’s Syndrome is starting to creep up on me. I’m hoping that this is my last field exercise in the Army, though that’s doubtful. Close to four months remain before I start my terminal leave, and over five months remain on my contract with the military. Is it only four months to terminal leave? My gods, but the time is flying… This is a good crew, even if they rub me the wrong way, now and again. But so what? As the song goes, “People are people, wherever you go…”

It’s Tuesday, as I finish this up, so… Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday – and then we roll back in on Sunday; that means, “Four and a wake-up, baby!”

I can’t wait to get out of here. SSG Hall says his back’s killing him. LT’s foot is killing him. Day’s foot isn’t doing much better, and for her and Skoglund, it’s the first time they’ve been out in the field in a long time, so I know this longer jaunt than they’re used to is wearing on them. Smith misses his little girl and his wife. Coughenour probably just misses chasing skirts and drinking beer. We all miss a good night’s sleep in our own beds.

Four and a wake-up…

Four months and a wake-up. I still need to find a job before I get out, re-enroll at Lamar to finish up my degree, apply for grants or scholarships, attend Army out-processing briefs to help me acclimatize to being a civilian, hunt for an apartment, and generally prepare to move back to Beaumont – all without compromising my Soldiers or my mission.

I’m going to have to see if they can move me away from my Soldiers, so that my Short Timer’s Syndrome doesn’t affect them, or hurt them. I’m already losing confidence in myself as an effective leader, and I don’t need that to hurt the joes. Gurf. Tired. S’about 3:07am, and I’ll likely be up for many more hours, until we’re finally at FOB Anvil, situated and comfortable.

There’s talk of us running 24-hour BIDS missions. So instead of having two identical (or near-identical) Biological Integrated Detection Suites operating side-by-side, we’ll just operated one for twelve hours, and the other for twelve hours. Only mine is starting to have issues. The MiniFlow’s been acting strange all exercise, and is, I think, finally crapping out on us. One of the O/Cs shut off our generator without warning Coughenour or Smith; the generator shut-off happened at a bad time, and broke the carousel arm on the LS. (The O/C’s intent was to test Coughenour and Smith on Alternate Protocols, running the BIDS shelter on the power of the truck’s generator. The guys passed, though with a little help from the O/C.) The SINCGARS hasn’t been able to transmit beyond 50m for anyone but SFC Poole, and I have no clue how to fix it, despite my time working in company and battalion TOCs.

I’m rambling. It’s three in the morning, and I have little else to keep me awake, so I’m going to ramble. Day’s racked out beside me. I’ll wake her if I need her. She left her book up on the table, though, and I’m tempted to borrow it. It’s called ‘Apocalipstick’, and while it’s generally not my type, it’s better than nothing. I could go the LT’s tent, and borrow from Gleason’s stash, as he apparently brought out the entire CS Lewis series. I made it to page 66 of ‘The Magician’s Nephew’ while he was a dinner chow, today, and could stand to finish the book. PFC Garrison let me borrow one, though I can’t remember it’s name, and I managed to get about as far into it, before I had to get on with something or another…

Oh, well. S’just another day in the Army.

* * *

The following was written on 16FEB2006:

Damn. I missed Valentine’s Day, and I have a wonderful sweetie that I wanted to spoil.

I almost forgot about Valentine’s Day while I was in the Box at Fort Polk, Louisiana. D-Day was a blurry memory in the past, and we were on D+4 or some such. Our two biological weapons detection teams at Forward Operating Base Forge needed to relocated to FOB Anvil. On the way to Anvil, we would stop in at FOB Spirit, where the other two teams from our platoon were located; those two teams, Charlie and Delta, would relocate to FOB Comfort – where D-Day had started.

The convoy out of Forge would be an integrated BIDS/FOX bunch. Our BIDS trucks were laboratories on wheels – big, bulky trucks that were easy targets. The FOX vehicles were six-wheeled, armored, amphibious monstrosities that weighed in at nearly 18 tons each, and had some decent firepower, and a powerful drive train. Having learned some lessons from D-Day, we would not dismount our vehicles unless absolutely necessary, allowing the bigger FOXs to maneuver better without worrying about running over us ‘crunchies’.

Not too far out of Forge, we stopped for a possible IED in the road, along the hard-ball that was named Route Iron. Coughenour waved me back to the truck, and once I saw what he was pointing at, I immediately saw his dilemma. The big 15kw generators we tow are too heavy for the light trailers they’re on, and two of the four bolts holding the trailer chassis to the towing bar had stripped out. The remaining two bolts might hold, but only for a little while. Since we were fairly close to Spirit, it was decided to continue on, though at a much slower pace.

I could almost hear the FOXs chomping at the bit.

We limped into FOB Spirit without too much trouble, and pulled aside. Our mechanic, SPC Gleason, tried a variety of things. The two bolts that were holding were deemed serviceable, though the plate holding them in was buckling. The other two bolts were still inside the hydraulic brakes housing, and they were promptly screwed back in to see if they would hold. That failed. Next, he tried a ratchet strap, but doing that meant the leg couldn’t come up on the trailer – and the leg had to go up, or the trailer only had a few inches of clearance to the ground. Then we used brute force to hold the trailer up, with the leg up, so Gleason could ratchet strap the plates together, and we could get it onto the vehicle’s two pintle.

The Observer/Controllers nixed it, for safety reasons. If the ratchet strap were to fail, then the trailer would plow into the road, flip, and be severely damaged – and possibly damage the truck with two personnel that was pulling the trailer.

The trailer could not simply be abandoned in a training environment like the Box, and so someone had to stay with it. The Powers That Be preferred an NCO to stay behind, because they could usually pull rank or were experienced enough with things to accomplish seemingly impossible tasks. Since the trailer belonged to my team, I was staying with my driver. They hooked up the support trailer – with camouflage nets, tents, and the like – up to the BIDS truck. My crews made sure their bags were sorted, and that neither of the other trucks had their bags. My driver Smith and I grabbed a coupled of cots out of the support trailer, too, just for good measure.

Then the convoy left without us.

Smith was operating on about three hours sleep in the last twenty-four hours. I wanted to bed him down, while I did the leg work necessary to get the trailer back up and moving. Unfortunately, he was already so tired that he couldn’t properly rest; he couldn’t even sleep.

Our Toon Daddy, SFC Poole, had managed to scrounge up a fifty-foot commo cable from somewhere, in the hopes that it could be used to remote the radio from one of the trucks, into the command tent for him and the LT. The commo cable had a splice in it, and several broken pins – and didn’t work. I’d saved it from FOB Forge just on the off-chance our common guys could fix it. SFC Poole gave it to a battalion commo section there on FOB Spirit, and in return, that battalion common section’s two NCOs made themselves available to us.

Sergeants Fogard and Fogarty worked with their crews to test and check our system, loaded us with a new security protocol program, cleaned our antennas, and did a slew of other things I’d never seen done before by any commo section. I was thrilled! I also learned a couple of maintenance tips that I would begin instituting, once I got back to garrison.

We then made a commo check with 51st Chemical Company’s command section, and got through without any trouble. We let them know that we would make regular checks with them, but would otherwise be unavailable as we took care of things.

I found the maintenance section without too much trouble, and just asked the first mechanic I saw, “Who do I talk to about fixing a busted trailer?”

The specialist, who was elbow deep in a humvee, was amiable enough and friendly enough to get me in touch with Sergeant Rime (with a hard ‘e’). I explained the situation to Sergeant Rime, and he walked over to talk a look at the situation for himself. He also had another of his mechanics take a look at it, and take the rest of the tow mechanism apart.

I asked the guy how the system works, and he explained that there was a hydraulic fluid reservoir behind the tow ring. Whenever the truck towing the trailer would use its brakes, the two ring would run up into the two pintle, and that would put pressure on the hydraulic fluid reservoir and its diaghram; from there, oil would be pushed out to the brakes, and pressure applied.

Sergeant Rime’s specialist worked the trailer as best he could, but his options were limited. He made a suggestion that I bit off on, and we rolled from there. Sergeant Rime had a new welding device he’d been wanting to try, and this was the perfect opportunity for him to make a couple of quick bead welds. The bead welds would hold until we could make it to the next FOB, or the rear, where the mechanics there could break the welds, sand them down, and either do a good weld job (taking several hours) or find a way to fix the stripped out portions of the tow ring.

They used a couple of bolts and some washers as raw material, and made some really crappy-looking welds – but they would probably hold. Mission accomplished – inside of a few hours, at that – we called 51st Chem Co’s command and explained our success.

Their command waffled several times, but finally decided to come pick us up that night. I agreed only because Smith was confident he could drive despite his sleep deprivation. He’s a solid and dependable man, and when he gives his word, I accept it.

We drove the truck around the FOB at a very slow rate, just to make sure the weld would hold that long, and then we went to chow. While we were in the chow line, helping ourselves to hamburgers and hotdogs, and marveling at the good food, one of the civilian food handlers made an announcement about there being plenty of Valentine’s Day candy for all the Soldiers.

Valentine’s Day! February the 14th! Doh! It had come, and gone, and I still didn’t know what day of the week it was. Tuesday? Thursday? I hadn’t a clue, but I felt bad at not remembering my sweetie, sooner.

Smith and I enjoyed the meal, and then sat back to wait on the FOXs from 51st to come and get us. We sat in the humvee, with the trailer already hooked up, and chatted amiably for awhile. Smith was like a sponge, when it came to professional matters, soaking up information about how divisions worked, staff jobs, and other things that those of his rank rarely were even aware of.

He coughed, and had been coughing all day. After a bit, I just ordered him to visit the medics there. He was wary, but I ordered him to go, anyway, having already touched base with the medics earlier to make sure it was all right.

Unlike active-duty Army personnel, Reserve and Guard personnel tend to have diverse professional backgrounds. It’s a good conversation-opener to ask, “What do you do in the Real World?” Some are students, professional welders, plumbers, tax collectors, and more. Most of those in support roles do almost the same job in the professional work, as they do for the military. In this case, the medic I’d sent Smith to was a professional Emergency Medical Technician, and his boss was an Emergency Room doctor. I knew Smith was in good hands.

He returned, impressed with how well he had been treated. If he had gone to an active-duty aid station, they would have taken his blood pressure, heart rate, and temperature – and then likely prescribed several medications. The Guard guys, though, checked his lymph nodes for swelling, listened to his lungs for bronchitis and pneumonia, and generally made him feel like a real human being that needed genuine medical attention – and not like a scumbag that was faking a fucking cough.

Damn, but I hate Army medics.

They’d given Smith some cough drops to take while he was awake, and some Robitussin to take before going to sleep, and that was all they could do. It was enough, though, to treat him like a decent person, and check on him like he was such.

We continued talking, and waiting for 51st‘s FOXs to show up. When they arrived, we linked up, and I got an instant good-vibe from the convoy commander, a Staff Sergeant Miller. Sergeant Miller waited long enough to refill his platoon’s combat lifesaver bags from the aid station, and then we were off.

Smith and I noticed almost immediately that the brakes were shot on the trailer. It dawned on me that the mechanics had left the hydraulic mechanism installed when they had welded the beads, probably super-heating or vaporizing chunks of the rubber and oil in the system. We slowed down, and let Sergeant Miller know what was going on. He replied that it wasn’t a problem, and quickly brought his FOXs under slower control.

We limped on to FOB Comfort without any problems, and reported to the first sergeant, there. Things got situated, we explained the status of the trailer, and then we headed towards our bunks – almost the same bunks we had awoken in, on D-Day.

Smith was out cold, fast.

I went outside, to look at the stars, and say aloud, “Happy Valentine’s Day, Laura. May your stars be just as bright…” for bright they were -- the whole of the Milky Way stretched out before me in the darkness, with no moon in sight.