7 August 2008
FYI, I hope you all know I decided to write this today in order to get you up-to-date on what I've been up to even though today is not 08-08-08, and that kind of bothers me, but I'll deal with it.
So 7 weeks have gone by and I've spent them all within the Ft. Irwin compound. The National Training Center (NTC) is the main deal at Ft. Irwin and it's basically a training site set up to send a unit to war and back within 4 weeks. There is an infantry unit stationed at Ft. Irwin who's Army Mission is to act as the enemy to the rotational units (that's what you're called if your training). Today at NTC we fight the Iraqi insurgents in towns and then help re-build the towns after the main threats are neutralized. Three years ago the Iraqi towns didn't exist in the Ft. Irwin training area, so the realistic aspect of the training does a much better job of simulating Iraq and the war there than it used to.
The way the training is set up is that we had 3 weeks of offloading our equipment from the ship that brought it from Anchorage to San Diego and preparing for the training. Then two weeks were spent in the 'BOX' conducting training. The Box is the training land on Irwin with numerous FOBs (Forward Operating Base) where usually 1-2 Battalions are operating from. Each FOB is near one of the Iraqi towns which has all the main buildings a real town would that are of any importance to the Army and it's mission. So the infantry guys had buildings to clear. There were mosques and health care clinics, out door markets, vehicles, and role players acting as Iraqi citizens, Iraqi Police, and Terrorist Cells. The roads connecting all the FOBs have IEDs and VBIEDs (vehicle IEDs) with role players as IED makers who the infantry guys have to hunt down. All in all it's a pretty impressive training center with a lot of potential for good training as long as the units play the game right and conduct their missions. Once the field portion is done we go back to the Ft. Irwin garrison area to re-load all our equipment for shipping to over the Kuwait and some back to Alaska, so that was the last two weeks of our time down there. Our unit spent more time at NTC than most units because we were sending all our equipment there, then on to Kuwait where as most units don't ship their equipment, just draw from the equipment at Ft. Irwin.
During the first week there my job changed from focusing on medical logistics to logistics to the entire rotation. Our brigade was the main rotational effort, but we were also joined but a battalion from the 101 Airborne division, 2 Marine units, a field artillery unit from Ft. Sill OK, and two reserve units. All in all we supported over 5,550 Soldiers during the two weeks of training. My job was to track the supplies at the FOBs and prepare all the information for the daily update briefs and move resources around if FOBs were falling short in supplies. I focused on food, water, ice, vehicle maintenance parts, ammunition, and medical supplies. It took me a couple weeks to figure out since I wasn't planning on doing that job, but by the end of the training I spent more time waiting around for people to send me their information than I did trying to translate all the data.
We lived in huge tents that housed about 100-150 people depending on how you arranged the cots. There were air conditioning units in the tents, but during the day when it was over 100 outside the tents weren't much cooler. At night though they dropped down to about 60 degrees and I hate to say I was usually a little chilly at night, then sweaty and annoyed during the day. When we were in the field we still had showers. Our unit contracted for trailers with shower heads to be brought out, so NTC wasn't nearly as ugly as it used to be. The scenery is not awful at Irwin, but after 7 weeks of staring at scraggly little bushes and coyotes that look like they are about to drop dead, trees and water are exciting to see back in Fairbanks. We experienced a couple storms. The storms were usually a combination of wind, sand, rain, and lightning. The first lightening storm we had was awesome because the lightening streaked across the sky in rows of 3-6 bands. The sand storms were not cool and do not look forward to a year of them. There were mountains that popped up a couple hundred feet, dried out lakes and river beds, and piles of rocks around which I have no idea where they came from.
I had a Rosy the Riveter day after we were done training which was fun. Once we came out of the Box I didn't really have a job because everyone was turning in equipment and using the supplies in the Garrison area so I went out with the ammo guys and helped them 'sling' ammo. My job was to put the 'diaper' on the 'pork chop', and yes that is what the ammo guys said, even though it's slang. I laughed when they told me what my job would be, but I learned that just like everything else in the Army, if you're the subject matter expert, you change the names for no real reason other than you can. The day I helped we were re-packaging linked M16 rounds to be turned in. The infantry units drew a whole bunch more ammo than the fired, and then didn't keep it sealed which meant the ammo guys had to re-package every opened box. Our job that day was to re-count the links and make sure there were 200, put them back in the pork chop (the plastic drum that attaches to the weapon) then put the pork chop in the diaper (the bandelier which can be slung over your shoulder or attached to your gear). We also re-organized several pallets of smoke and fragment grenades. It was interesting to see the ammo process, and fun to stand in the assembly line and pack over 100,000 rounds of ammunition.
Once I find my camera cable I'll upload the pictures. Then I'll probably have more to say, but there are the high lights for now.
So 7 weeks have gone by and I've spent them all within the Ft. Irwin compound. The National Training Center (NTC) is the main deal at Ft. Irwin and it's basically a training site set up to send a unit to war and back within 4 weeks. There is an infantry unit stationed at Ft. Irwin who's Army Mission is to act as the enemy to the rotational units (that's what you're called if your training). Today at NTC we fight the Iraqi insurgents in towns and then help re-build the towns after the main threats are neutralized. Three years ago the Iraqi towns didn't exist in the Ft. Irwin training area, so the realistic aspect of the training does a much better job of simulating Iraq and the war there than it used to.
The way the training is set up is that we had 3 weeks of offloading our equipment from the ship that brought it from Anchorage to San Diego and preparing for the training. Then two weeks were spent in the 'BOX' conducting training. The Box is the training land on Irwin with numerous FOBs (Forward Operating Base) where usually 1-2 Battalions are operating from. Each FOB is near one of the Iraqi towns which has all the main buildings a real town would that are of any importance to the Army and it's mission. So the infantry guys had buildings to clear. There were mosques and health care clinics, out door markets, vehicles, and role players acting as Iraqi citizens, Iraqi Police, and Terrorist Cells. The roads connecting all the FOBs have IEDs and VBIEDs (vehicle IEDs) with role players as IED makers who the infantry guys have to hunt down. All in all it's a pretty impressive training center with a lot of potential for good training as long as the units play the game right and conduct their missions. Once the field portion is done we go back to the Ft. Irwin garrison area to re-load all our equipment for shipping to over the Kuwait and some back to Alaska, so that was the last two weeks of our time down there. Our unit spent more time at NTC than most units because we were sending all our equipment there, then on to Kuwait where as most units don't ship their equipment, just draw from the equipment at Ft. Irwin.
During the first week there my job changed from focusing on medical logistics to logistics to the entire rotation. Our brigade was the main rotational effort, but we were also joined but a battalion from the 101 Airborne division, 2 Marine units, a field artillery unit from Ft. Sill OK, and two reserve units. All in all we supported over 5,550 Soldiers during the two weeks of training. My job was to track the supplies at the FOBs and prepare all the information for the daily update briefs and move resources around if FOBs were falling short in supplies. I focused on food, water, ice, vehicle maintenance parts, ammunition, and medical supplies. It took me a couple weeks to figure out since I wasn't planning on doing that job, but by the end of the training I spent more time waiting around for people to send me their information than I did trying to translate all the data.
We lived in huge tents that housed about 100-150 people depending on how you arranged the cots. There were air conditioning units in the tents, but during the day when it was over 100 outside the tents weren't much cooler. At night though they dropped down to about 60 degrees and I hate to say I was usually a little chilly at night, then sweaty and annoyed during the day. When we were in the field we still had showers. Our unit contracted for trailers with shower heads to be brought out, so NTC wasn't nearly as ugly as it used to be. The scenery is not awful at Irwin, but after 7 weeks of staring at scraggly little bushes and coyotes that look like they are about to drop dead, trees and water are exciting to see back in Fairbanks. We experienced a couple storms. The storms were usually a combination of wind, sand, rain, and lightning. The first lightening storm we had was awesome because the lightening streaked across the sky in rows of 3-6 bands. The sand storms were not cool and do not look forward to a year of them. There were mountains that popped up a couple hundred feet, dried out lakes and river beds, and piles of rocks around which I have no idea where they came from.
I had a Rosy the Riveter day after we were done training which was fun. Once we came out of the Box I didn't really have a job because everyone was turning in equipment and using the supplies in the Garrison area so I went out with the ammo guys and helped them 'sling' ammo. My job was to put the 'diaper' on the 'pork chop', and yes that is what the ammo guys said, even though it's slang. I laughed when they told me what my job would be, but I learned that just like everything else in the Army, if you're the subject matter expert, you change the names for no real reason other than you can. The day I helped we were re-packaging linked M16 rounds to be turned in. The infantry units drew a whole bunch more ammo than the fired, and then didn't keep it sealed which meant the ammo guys had to re-package every opened box. Our job that day was to re-count the links and make sure there were 200, put them back in the pork chop (the plastic drum that attaches to the weapon) then put the pork chop in the diaper (the bandelier which can be slung over your shoulder or attached to your gear). We also re-organized several pallets of smoke and fragment grenades. It was interesting to see the ammo process, and fun to stand in the assembly line and pack over 100,000 rounds of ammunition.
Once I find my camera cable I'll upload the pictures. Then I'll probably have more to say, but there are the high lights for now.
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