No longer a Fobbit

Here back at Fort McCoy proper, at the computer lab at 2230 I can hear the drumbeat of machine gun in the background, a combo of 50 cal and M249 out on the range. Last night it was artillery until almost midnight. I'm glad I'm done with that for a while. Yesterday was a long day, spent mostly out on the "training lanes" in a live fire exercise (we were carrying and firing live 5.56mm ammunition in our M16's). We were split into three convoys of 40 "pax" (personnel) and 8 gun trucks each. The lane is basically a sprawling shooting range with dirt roads that run through fake villages with pop up targets and pre set pyrotechnics that simulate small arms fire, RPGs and IED blasts. Our task is to navigate a route, shoot the targets down, and respond to simulated battle damage when the instructors tell us that a truck has been disabled. The instructors (sitting in the back of trucks) throw down injury cards on people that indicate the extent of injuries and people in the convoy respond accordingly.

Our first mission was uneventful with one disabled truck (towed out of the kill zone) and one casualty who was prepared for medevac within 10 minutes.

The second mission was a bit more exciting. Our observer/trainer was an Army Sergeant who is also a former Marine (Sgt Engelberger). I like him, as he has very little attitude and seems perpetually gregarious and happy, but you can only understand 50% of what he says, and 50% of what you can make out is derived from the root word "fuck". He's one of those people who uses obscenities in a way that is somehow entertaining-- only certain people can pull this off. On the first part of the lane I had a malfunction with my rifle-- it kept double feeding rounds because it wouldn't eject the spent cartridge. I knew what was wrong, told Sgt Engelberger, and while we were driving he field stripped the rifle, repaired it using the spring from my ballpoint pen, put it back together, slapped in a magazine and stood up in the back of the moving truck-- he said "I hope my boss doesn't see me" and he test fired the rifle out of the back of the truck. The rifle worked and he gave it back to me. All of this occurred within 5 minutes. I was impressed.

A mile down the road we were told to execute a dismount (get out of the trucks) and respond to simulated fire from one side of the parked convoy (we were stopped due to an simulated IED in the road). This is something they told us that, in real life, we would almost never do, because the safest place is inside an up armored vehicle, not dismounted and exposed on a road. I think we did it just so that people other than the gunners got to shoot. Anyway, we dismounted on a small hill. Sgt Engelberger reminded everyone to maintain muzzle control and mumbled something about not wanting to get shot. His quote was "Don't wanna get shot with 5.56. That shit'll go in your arm and come out your leg." The gunner stayed in the truck and the rest of each crew paired off at either fender, with one person firing on targets and swapping to reload behind the truck. This was a graduation exercise of sorts, success being that we executed all tasks without shooting ourselves or each other.

It was a fun boy-thing to do... I quickly ran through three 30 round magazines (BUP BUP BUP BUPBUPBUPBUPBUPBUP) and then we got the order to mount up. A few miles down the road our truck was hit with a simulated RPG and our truck commander had a double leg amputation. My position was directly behind the passenger seat so I jammed myself up through the truck and heroically applied two tourniquets in under the four minute time limit-- we got towed into a safe zone and pulled our casualty out for medical care and packaging for medevac. During the preparation of a hasty landing zone the LZ team leader refused to go out into a field beside the road-- she kept screaming "I'm not going out there-- I'm allergic to grass-- I hate ticks too". The observers walked over and gave her a card that described a bullet wound to the chest-- she had been hit by a sniper and was now a casualty and we prepped the LZ without her. Unfortunately for her, she is very phobic of needles and from out in the field I could hear her screaming bloody murder while the combat lifesavers were applying an 18 gauge needle to her arm. The observers turn you into a casualty if you engage in some sort of behavior that is not tactically sound-- like standing around, taking your helmet off, taking the ballistic glasses off, etc. I think that we got to practice starting IV's at least 30-40 times throughout the 1 week of FOB training---

After we got back we were briefed and given kudos for being one of the best USAF groups that had gone through the course. The trainers said they were impressed, especially given our collective ignorance of combat ops. They further stroked our egos by saying we were better than a lot of Army units who were mobilizing these days. I don't know if that made me feel good about our group or afraid for all the Army units--

In all seriousness, this experience is unpleasant and has 100% locked-in my intention to drop my separation paperwork as soon as I can. However, I am truly glad I'm getting this convoy training because convoys sit as one of my biggest fears related to this deployment...