Then and Now--Sleeping on a Range

Today was qualifying day on the machine gun range. Almost 30 of us went spent the day qualifying on the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon. It was a much longer day than it was supposed to be. We arrived at the range just after 8 am, but did not start firing until almost 1 pm. Someone somewhere screwed up and the ammo did not not arrive until 12:30.

But I was happy. I love being on ranges. And after yesterday's race, it was good to have some time to relax. When things are screwed up on a range, we just sit and wait. We sit and wait in a Kevlar helmet and bulletproof vest so we are very warm.

In the 70s I knew I had acclimated to Army life on ranges when I woke in the middle of the day on a tank gunnery range on Fort Carson, Colorado. I was lying at the ammo point 100 feet behind 17 tanks lined up fender to fender test firing machine guns. It wasn't until they started firing the 105 mm cannons that I woke up. Even then, I was half asleep and saw the little stones in the sand bouncing from the blast. I stayed lying on the ammo boxes and watched the dirt bounce for a few seconds before I actually woke up.




This afternoon, after my team had fired, I was one of several soldiers who stretched on the gravel at the briefing area 50 feet from the machine gun firing positions. An hour later I woke up to more firing. If I can fall asleep and nap while four SAWs are firing full-auto on a range, then I am really getting used to life on the range again.

When I was awake, I fired qualified, so it was a really good day. Here's a good You Tube video of a SAW range.

The Green Cheerleaders

When I was racing and my kids were young, I often had the largest fan contingent of any racer. My wife and four children were at the race giving me five fans, plus about 5% of all the spectators at the race. Today at the Hills of Hell Road Race more than 25 members of my company, including half the motor platoon came to the race in a large van and a truck. It was great to have that many fans. I will post pictures from the race later when I can get them from the various people who took them.

For the bike geeks, the race was an 18-mile out-and-back course on a paved road that runs through the middle of a Fort Sill artillery range. Nobody was shooting on Sunday. I have ridden the road during the week, but the shells pass high overhead on the way to distant targets. The road are made for heavy vehicles but get little traffic compared to a public road so they are very smooth. The course began and ended at a lakeside recreation area at the base of one of the larger hills. We went up three miles form the start on a shallow grade to the west, turned south and went down the steepest hill on the course--a short 7% descent--then on rolling terrain to the turn around.

I finished third overall out of 20 starters. Definitely a citizens race. I rode with the two guys who finished first and second from the beginning of the race till the base of the big climb on the way back. At that point, the 30-year age difference between us took over and I got dropped with four miles to go. First place dropped second in the middle of the climb. Second place was strong, but he had aero bars and lost a lot of ground on the climb. Fourth place finished three minutes behind me.

There was one other racer from our unit, a Blackhawk pilot who has ridden from Portland Oregon to Buffalo NY with her boyfriend. She finished 12th overall and was the first woman. He placing was better than it sounds because she rode my one-speed bike. The chaplain also offered her a loaner race bike, but she wanted to see how well she could do on the one-speed.

I am still coughing three hours later. It was great to hang in with the 20-year-olds for most of the race and to feel like I went as hard as I could.

Saturday Night at 8 pm in My Room

So right at this moment my roommates have guests.
Two 200+ pound soldiers are dancing with each other.
A female soldier is sitting in the doorway downloading Hispanic rap songs from another roommate.
Our platoon leader just walked by and asked if I was going to sleep for the race tomorrow.
The first two stopped dancing and my roommate's dance partner returned to eating ribs and bitching about how tough the ribs are.
One of the squad leaders just walked by to ask how much one of my roommate's duffel bags weighs.
The dancer just dropped the ribs and went back to dancing in the hallway to a song called "The Percolator." Without the female soldier, my room, which is about the size of a suburban kitchen, would start looking like a San Francisco bar.
It's now 8:02pm. The dancer is back to the ribs. The music stopped. The soldier eating the ribs just asked for a toothpick.
I am going to take a shower.

College Dorm Room Draw in Camo

Today we picked our roommates for Iraq. Just as the room choice lottery is the biggest event at every campus, and in Harry Potter's world, figuring who will be your roommate in Iraq is a very big deal.



And just as college room draw goes by class and sometimes by grade-point-average, our roommate choice has several restrictions. At least in our platoon, people of the same rank room together. When there are odd numbers, soldiers can room with someone one rank above or below, but not two. And just as in college, you want to pick a roommate you really like first (we call them battle buddies). Failing that, you want to pick a person you feel like you could get along with or at least would not be too judgmental about your flaws.

But the big drama is avoiding rooming with a soldier you don't get along with. This may seem silly for people going to a war zone, but if you have to spend most of a year in a place with a lot of stress, it is important not to have more stress when you get time off.



We don't have a Sorting Hat like Hogwarts Academy, or an sorting algorithm like college deans, so roommate selection is handled by several sergeants, a group that currently shares one large room and is know collectively by soldiers outside the platoon as the Fab Five. Cliques, whether in high school, college, the Army or at Microsoft Corporation, almost always have that kind of name from outsiders.

All this applies only to the male soldiers. Some different process governs roommate selection for the female soldiers.

Road March

This morning we were up at 0345 to get ready for a five-mile road march at 0430. For the march we wore our Kevlar vests and helmets and carried our weapons, about 35 pounds of gear including Camelbacks. The march was so fast I entered it in my exercise spreadsheet as a 1-mile jog and a 4-mile walk. I spent a lot of time on the downhills at a slow run closing up the gaps that formed as the leaders strode along at the highest pace they could step out.

After the march my heel hurt enough that I limped and did my ankle exercises every time I stood still the rest of the day. I got to ride 22 miles between 1630 and 1800 (430 and 6 pm) which made my ankle feel a lot better.

The best part of the march by far was that everyone finished. When we run, we break up into three ability groups and those groups splinter in the first half mile. But with the road march some people moved up, some dropped back, but we regrouped twice and everyone finished. Some finished a few minutes after, but everyone was there at the end. It was a big confidence builder for the people who usually get dropped on the runs. It was worth limping for a day.

Three Weeks of Remedial PT

Tonight marks the third week I have been leading Remedial PT. Each Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday evening at 7pm, I lead the fitness training for those who failed one or more of the three events of their last PT test. The test is pushups, sit ups and a two-mile run. Of the 20+ soldiers in my group, most failed the run or the run plus one or two other events. Only two soldiers failed just situps, and no one in my group just failed the pushups.

The good news for those who get back up to speed on the run is that fixing the run almost always leads to better performance on the other two. And I already have two graduates. Two soldiers who were too slow on the run on their last PT test, ran two miles under their required time and now they don't have to show up for my formation.

But for the others, three weeks is a big deal. Most of the soldiers in remedial do not have a habit of fitness training. Most organizing or exercising gurus say if you can keep a habit for three weeks, you can potentially keep it for a lifetime. On the negative side, that's probably the same threshold for smoking or other bad habits.

So the remedial PT soldiers are getting better and they are on the way to changing their habits. I was talking to one of the soldiers today and had a Dostoevsky moment. I told him I was here partly because of wanting to do good and never getting around to actually doing it. We agreed that pretty much everybody on this deployment wants to do good in some way and also wants to clean up some part of their lives: money, fitness, weight, whatever. Dostoevsky says there is a spark of God in all of us, but we need to fan it into a flame.

Sergeant Rock and Sergeant Rumpled

The military will never be the flat organization business gurus say is the future of management. We have rank, structure and a chain of command. And alongside the official chain of command (Tolstoy is great on this subject in War and Peace) is the unofficial hierarchy. We have a hierarchy in everything: the best marksman, the fastest runner, the best at drill and ceremonies, the strongest, the best sprinter, who can fart the loudest or belch the longest. Because we live so close together, everyone knows these hierarchies.


Just as we all know the best at everything, we all know the worst. Not only does everyone know who has the highest PT scores, they know who has the lowest. Some are great at one thing and bad at others. Some are good at several things. But there is always one who is the all-around best at everything and his direct opposite: Sgt Rock and Sgt Rumpled.

Our unit is the same. We have people who max the PT test, but are just OK on the range or marching troops, or leading a field exercise. We have expert marksmen who barely pass the fitness test. And people who are great at drill and ceremonies that can't shoot very well or run. But Sgt Rock can do everything, if not the best, in the top 10% in every category. Sgt Rumpled can do almost nothing except show up when he is supposed to. That's how he hangs on. He does what he is told, complains when he can get away with it and lingers on hoping to get to retirement. In fact, my first time around there was an acronym everyone used: LIFER (Lazy Inefficient F#$kup Expecting Retirement). I haven't heard the acronym here and don't want to be the one to bring it back, but it applies to Sgt Rumpled. He looks unwashed and ragged even when he puts on a new uniform. He can't lead or shoot and has the worst PT score in the company.

Not surprisingly, he also thinks himself nearly a sage as far as technical competence, but his supervisors will not give him any job they cannot check, because he is also a bad mechanic.

Rock and Rumpled are also opposites in personality. Rock makes self-deprecating jokes and is cheerful with almost everyone. Rumpled only makes jokes at another soldier's expense.

Every unit I have been in over the years has had both of these guys. I wish I knew if it was the nature of the Army or I have just been in units with the best and the worst the Army can put in one place.