Urban Combat

Today was Urban Combat training. We jumped through windows, moved along buildings, threw grappling hooks and built firing positions in a mockup village made mostly from Conex boxes, the 8 by 8 by 20 foot containers that cross the oceans on ships. It rained most of the day, not very hard, but steady. So when we crawled, it was in the mud.
Jon Rutter, the Lancaster Sunday News reporter who wrote a story about me joining the Army last September, came to today's training with a photographer and stayed most of the day. The article should be out soon, I would guess on Memorial Day weekend. Jon had never heard the Army motto "If it ain't rainin' it ain't trainin'" but he heard it many times today. Neither Jon nor the photographer had MREs (Meal Ready to Eat) before, and had a lot of fun eating the various things that come packed in Army field rations. Follow the link to see our lunch.
Today was another long, dirty day that was a lot of fun.

Eased Restriction for Mother's Day

I was home from 530 to 10pm this evening because the commander gave many soldiers passes for Mother's Day. So the restriction to post was eased to give soldiers a chance to see their mothers and wives. We did have to fill out a two-page request for a pass that included a virtual oath to drive carefully.
In the morning we had classes on communications and then one on health and sanitation. They picked the right guy to teach the class on health and sanitation. He is quiet and could get get through the entire presentation without making a single joke. The PowerPoint presentation that accompanied his talk included graphic reminders of how a soldier could get AIDS and other diseases, but our instructor left every joke unspoken.

Still Wearing a Borrowed Steel Helmet

Today we were supposed to get new field gear--two duffle bags full of it. But the Strykers went through the deployment processing facility the week before we did and the cupboard was bare. I got one duffle bag with a scarf and a ski mask and a canteen cup. I am still using a borrowed steel helmet--no kevlar helmet yet.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

Physical Today and the Square Needle in the Left Nut

I just got four vaccinations, which is the maximum, not 8 or 9 as yesterday's rumor had it. Speaking of rumors, I asked a couple of the older guys here but no one remembers the mythical vaccination of Air Force basic training I heard in 1972. The rumor at Lackland Air Force Base back then was that after the shots from the air gun on the tenth day of basic training we would get one more vaccination for venereal disease. The rumor was we would all get the vaccination through a square needle in our left testicle on the 19th day of training. Most everybody knew after a couple of days that the square needle was just a rumor, but there were a couple of guys who didn't sleep well the night before the 19th training day.

There is a Viet Nam memoir by a Navy veteran titled Scars of the Square Needle that has a direct reference to the "square needle in the left nut." So if that rumor never made it to the Army, it was alive and well in the Navy and the Air Force.

More paperwork

Today was paperwork all morning--wake up at 0430--and into the afternoon followed by two-hour break, then a class on promotions, dinner and medical paperwork until just after 9pm (2100).
Tomorrow is medical processing--fast tonight then 8 or 9 vaccinations tomorrow and lots of other tests.

Dramatic to Deadly Dull

After choke holds, claymore mines, and combatives today was the opposite. I spent the morning in a classroom with 250 other soldiers reviewing the combat lifesaver course and taking the written test. I know this is serious stuff, but the guy who put the title on this course does not think literally. When I hear combat lifesaver, I think I am going to get a pack of camouflage-colored round candy. Anyway, the class and exam lasted from 8 am to 1 pm. After that we had a one-hour break and then went to begin three days of pre-deployment. We begin at 0515 tomorrow morning, but today, the processing staff had to make sure we were ready to begin. We were picked up in buses at 1415 and driven to another area of the base four miles away. We then had two roll calls. Then we were done. But it was three pm and the schedule said we were supposed to eat dinner were we were and return at 1830. So we waited 2 hours to eat. I waited three because I fell asleep until 1800 (6pm). Then we waited until 630 pm and returned to our barracks. One day of excitement. One day less exciting than watching paint dry.

Combatives!!

Today we had three classes. The first was hand grenades. For that class, I was the left-handed demonstrator. The third was claymore mines. For that I was the instructor. The second, in the middle of the day was Army Combatives. In that course I was just another soldier in a choke hold in the mud. It was great.
The 2.5-hour course was instruction in six choke holds and several methods of breaking free or flipping your opponent while fighting hand to hand on the ground. We practiced the drills in pairs. We really flipped each other over and pushed the choke holds till the soldier in the choke hold tapped to say "That's enough." Once I waited to long and saw stars. After two hours of practicing on damp ground we were forty muddy soldiers. The instructors lined us up in a long row and paired us up for one-minute fights, four fights at a time, each with one of the class instructors keeping time and making sure no one got seriously hurt. We were not allowed to kick or punch, but the point of the drill is to get the other soldier into a choke hold or one of the arm, breaking holds we learned.
We started on the ground. I got paired up with a 21-year-old soldier who a little taller than I am. If we were scored on points he won, but I managed to break the choke holds before he could actually get me in one of the holds. At the end I had a cut lip and was really jazzed.
The fights I watched were fast and fierce. This was just phase one. Later this year or next year we will be doing more. I ran three miles slow after the final formation of today. I am expecting to be very sore tomorrow.

Recovering Remains

Today we had a short class on recovering remains from a crash site or other place where American soldiers were killed. We have a procedure for everything.

Through the middle of the day I had a three-hour on-line course on Survival, Escape and Evasion. It was interesting, but it also shows how much better the live classes are.

From late in the day through 9 pm (2100 hours) we practiced more for tomorrow's class.

Detainee Handling Training

Today we were out in a field between tree lines learning how to search prisoners and how to stop hostile civilians, armed and unarmed at our perimeter. We really got into this perimeter defense training. In groups of a half-dozen or so, the same guys I was joking with five minutes before lined up in combat gear and rifles and "hostiles" (other soldiers in civilian clothes acting) coming up to them with hidden weapons. The squad leader yelled Halt, the hostiles kept coming. The rifles had muzzle covers but when a half-dozen battle clad soldiers raise their rifles and start picking targets, the scene has real drama.
We also practiced searching prisoners both standing and on the ground. It was another long day out I the sun and after it was over five of us stayed out till dark practicing for a class on hand grenades, claymore mines and some battle drills. There is a lot to practice and we are spending a lot of time doing on the range practicing. In addition to teaching the claymore mine, I am the left-handed grenade throwing demonstrator--it's different than right handed. Lefties have to hold the grenade upside down to keep the safety lever pointed toward the throwers chest.

Combat Lifesaver Training

In this three-week cycle of pre-deployment training if you asked most soldiers what they were worried about more: Iraq or Combat Lifesaver Training (CLS), CLS wins by a landslide. Today we spent the morning in this very important course. In CLS we learn how to save lives of terribly injured soldiers through rapid treatment on site of the worst wounds. The course is taught for three days in total. The first day, today, was all classroom instruction--which the Army calls "Death by PowerPoint." Nobody was worried about this class, or the next one. It's the third class, near the end of the three weeks. In that class we will all start an IV in another soldier, and (drum roll please) another soldier will start an IV in each of US!! That's what most everyone is worried about. That we will all be pin cushions for someone learning to start an IV.
Worries aside, it is a really good course just for the information they have assembled. I think the hands-on part will be really good.

The Deuce and a Half

Every soldier who has been in the Army since the Korean War has ridden in the back of an M35 2-1/2 ton truck known as the "Deuce and a Half." This three-axle, all-terrain, multi-fuel vehicle seats 20 soldiers in the open air or under a canvas tarp and is the main mode of transportation for troops moving anywhere in training and in war. My first ride in a deuce and a half was in tank training in 1975 at Fort Knox. We were riding to a firing range, sitting sideways on wooden benches, bouncing along in the dark oblivion of green-clad men under a canvas cover. We sat still a lot an drove slowly. The conversation occured in bursts. No one said anything, then we would slow and someone would fart and for five minutes afterward came jokes about the whether something had died inside the guy who had just fouled the air, the state of his undergarments, and what sort of moral failing promotes this activity.
When I rode in Deuce and a Halfs in Colorado then Germany then Pennsylvania over the nine years after that first ride, new groups recycled the same jokes. This morning, in a Deuce and a Half full of guys not born when I had my first ride in one, made the same jokes I remembered from three decades before--almost verbatim!

55th Birthday, Part 2

Today at final formation, one of the senior sergeants whispered to our first sergeant that "yesterday was Gussman's 55th birthday." So he led Echo company in happy birthday. They don't usually sing happy birthday, but since most of the people in the formation are three decades younger than I am, they thought 55 was worth singing about. No cake though.

Claymore Mine Training

After our initial briefings, I was put in charge of training our company how to use an M18A1 Claymore Mine. The class is next Tuesday so the two of us who will be teaching the course will be able to practice each day. The Claymore is not what most people would think of as a mine. It as more like a one-shot shotgun--a very big shotgun. It is 4 by 8 by 2 inches, stands on small legs facing the enemy and blasts 700 shotgun pellets over a wide area. There are 8 pages of instructions in the Soldiers Manual on how to use it correctly. It should be an interesting class.

55th Birthday

I celebrated my 55th birthday today (May 2) with the briefings that begin three weeks of Annual Training. We are confined to base for the three weeks, but this first day was actually our May drill so there was leeway for people who forgot things--like me. I left my dogtags in my dresser and did not bring any bedding.

Deployment Date

It's now official. I'll be going to Iraq in 2009 sometime in the spring, although we will leave for pre-deployment training in the US in mid-winter. On Friday we begin a three weeks of pre-deployment training that will be our "Summer Camp." We will be doing some cool stuff, so I plan to write every day if possible.

Final Results

The spreadsheet reporting the results is a little screwed up at the back end of the pack, but I finished 34th in the Road Race, 30th in the Time Trial, 26th in the Criterium--which was last man riding in each event. But if the attrition kept up, I would be in the top ten if there four more events!!

Stage 3--Criterium

A Criterium is a race with a very short lap, usually less than a mile, often less than a half mile. It is my favorite kind of race because you make four 90-degree corners (or more) per lap and you can go fast. The road is closed. It's great fun. But accelerating out of those four corners every 1 minute 10 second lap means it is a lot of work to stay with the pack. It is easy to be lapped if you screw up in one corner, so my comeback goal of finishing on the lead lap was going to be hardest here.
And eight laps into the race I was sure I would not make it the 20-lap full distance. I wasn't sure I would make it to half way. Two or three times in the opening laps the pack surged and I barely caught back on going up one of the two short hills. But I made it. I remembered to do what I used to do when I was wanted to rest--I hang about ten meters of the back of the pack going into the turn then when they are braking, I coast into the pack and come out of the corner at pack speed with less effort. this works great until there is an attack between turns, then I am 10 meters back of a pack that just upped its cornering speed by 5 mph. that happened on lap 17--I rode the last three laps alone. but the pace car never caught me and I finished on the lead lap. Since at least one other guy dropped out, I was not last.

Stage 2--Mt. Pain Time Trail

This second stage is an individual time trail--a race against the clock. In Europe they call it the race of truth--and the truth is I have a long way to go to come back as a racer. The course is five miles rolling then three miles up. The riders go off every 30 seconds so the best people are catching the riders in front, and I was being caught. By the half-way point five riders caught up to me. On the way up the hill four more caught me. Then with less than one km. to go, a rider caught me, rode beside me, then dropped back. Then another rider with way to difficult a gear caught and passed me then dropped back. I stayed ahead of them to the finish. They both had better times than me because they started after me, but it was still fun to hold them off at the end.

Stage Race

Today was the first of three events in a two-day stage race around and in Ephrata PA:
Road Race today
Time Trail tomorrow morning
Downtown Race Sunday afternoon.
Today's race like last week, I was the last guy riding at the finish. Again, I stayed on the lead lap--mostly because the laps are 5 miles long. I was with the leaders until half-way round the 2nd lap, then riding with stragglers and people who had flats until the end. I was 34th which is enough to be able to start tomrrow morning's time trial.

Science Cheerleader

I have not added a blog roll to my blog yet. I should. High on the list will be Darlene Cavalier's Science Cheerleader site. She is a former Philadelphia 76ers cheerleader who studied the role of citizens in science and science policy in graduate school at the University of Pennsylvania and created her site to get involved. She organizes science events for Discover magazine and has a big family.