a mobilized year

Here I sit in a tent under the sweltering Southern Mississippi August sun. Hands and arms dripping with sweat onto the computer keyboard. I’m in the middle of an ARTEP (a military exercise evaluation) with a lull in the action. I am thinking about all that my unit and I have been through these last two months and what awaits us in ten days as we depart for the middle east.

In looking back, it’s been a busy, fast-paced summer. My work day typically ranges from 14-20 hours, seven days a week. We did get July 4th off, but to be honest, I slept half of the day.

The training overall has been good. I’ve had some quarrels with some of the specific training (especially as it specifically relates to my company) or the quality of a few instructors, but I’m generally pleased: we’ve had a decent amount of trigger time, a lot of physically demanding training, and good team building time. I’ll go into some of the specifics shortly.

Living Conditions
I’m frequently asked, “what’s it like down there?” Well, it doesn’t take much to realize that it’s hot and muggy in Southern Mississippi during the summer. The days are typically in the mid-90s with high humidity. We wear “full battle rattle” most of the time, which means BDUs (long sleeve, long pants dark camouflage clothes), wool socks, boots, Kevlar helmet, Kevlar vest (with armor plates), weapon magazines, weapon(s), pouches, etc.

During my first month at the mobilization station, I split my time between FOB (Forward Operating Base) Hurricane and cockroach-infested, run-down billets with no air conditioning. The FOB contained tents that slept around 25 or soldiers with wood floors. Overall, not too bad. The ground outside the tents was made out of gravel that was somewhat arduous to walk around on. My troops had better conditions when we were in billets at the mobilization station. Most had somewhat modern billets, with air conditioning, which was helpful. During my second month here, First Sergeants and Captains and above moved to the “high rises,” which are two story buildings with single rooms with twin beds (that share toilets and showers). While not like the Hilton, Renaissance or Four Seasons, it’s like the lap of luxury when compared to where we were last month battling two-inch cockroaches on the way to the shower.

Everything is damp down here. A piece of paper that is not in an air conditioned room is always soggy. When putting on the BDUs in the morning, it always seems as if they are wetter than when you took them off the night before, despite hanging them up “to dry.”

Food and Drink
We have at least one MRE (meal ready to eat) a day, sometimes two and occasionally three. After two months of MREs, they are becoming, well, how should I say, not the food of choice. Don’t get me wrong, MREs are better than what they were in the 1980s and early 90s, it’s just that for some reason, despite the apparent variety of types of meals, they have a tendency to taste the same.

We typically eat two “A” or “B” meals a day, meaning hot meals (breakfast and dinner). An “A” meal is one served in the chow hall and a “B” meal is one that is brought to us in the field.

One could say that we have hearty breakfasts. The breakfast is virtually the same every day: scrambled eggs, hashbrowns, some form of meat (bacon, sausage, keubasa), grits, pancakes, oatmeal, packaged cereals, and fruit (banana, apple, or canned fruit). Most people don’t eat everything (but some do). Virtually everything is dripping with butter (even the oatmeal). I can’t eat the regular breakfasts often, they slow me down too much.

Dinners vary. They usually have a choice among two entrees, with one being some chicken product. Most dinners have at least one deep fried entrée. Dessert is a slice of pie or when we’re in the field some sort of Little Debbie product. When we’re not in the field, the drink selection is good: soda, juice, water, powerade, coffee, milk (chocolate or white—but no skim!).

Speaking of drinks, we drink a lot. I mean a lot! Not the booze (we’ve been under a no alcohol policy since getting here—not that we’d have much time to enjoy the local spirits anyway). Each soldier easily consumes 6-10 quarts of water a day. When it’s really hot, there can be an issue with soldiers drinking too much water (>12 quarts) in that in can have a significantly negative effect (electrolyte level?). During some of the light infantry lanes, uniforms are as drenched as much as if they were in a downpour. Uniforms drip, eyes sting with sweat, and it is not uncommon (as with myself) for soldiers to develop heat rashes and blisters (from wet clothes rubbing).

Typical Day
The typical day has evolved over time. Initially, when in the garrison environment, the days would start some time between 0400 and 0430. There would be some sort of leader meeting followed by physical training at 0500 or 0530 that would last around an hour or so. Training would often begin either at 0700 or 0800 and end either late afternoon or early evening. As the commander, I would go to a battalion command and staff call meeting that started some time between 1900-2100. These meetings, lasting 1 ½ - 2 hours) would be followed by company meetings where I would put out information from the battalion meeting and go over the next day or two’s schedule. It was not uncommon for me to get in bed between 2400-0130.

The training schedule changed frequently. On active duty, we always tried to lock in 5 weeks training and in the national guard, three months (because of the infrequency in which we would meet). Here at the mobilization station, trying to lock in anything more than 72 hours was a mistake because of the frequency by which there would be changes to the schedule. There would be various “mandatory” classes pop up for selected individuals or sections in which we would get 2 days notice. In one case, I was notified at 1730 for a class starting at 0700 the next day. Locations of events changed, start time times changed and event topics changed. All of which I’m sure there was a good reason for the change, but it created a very difficult situation for planning and logistic purposes (e.g., arranging transportation, meals and setting up makeup training for training that had to be completed prior to leaving the mobilization station).

When in the field, the day typically would start with a 0500 or so wake up. After breakfast, most training would last the entire day with a break in the late afternoon. Many events would have a night component to them so that the training would last until 2200-2300 or so.

Uniforms
Our experience with uniforms is a funny one. During the week prior to leaving Wisconsin, I received a lot of “one-liner jokes” from co-workers and friends about why we were wearing our BDUs (the standard green, brown, black, and tan camouflage uniforms) when we got mobilized instead of some desert uniform. I anticipated that in the first week or two of arriving at the mobilization station that we would receive our DCUs (Desert Camouflage Uniform) or ACUs (a digital pattern uniform that the Army is just beginning to field). As a result I only brought down to the mobilization station two serviceable uniforms--that was a mistake.

As it turns out, after having been here for two months, we still haven’t received our all our new uniforms. Somewhere between ½-⅓ of our battalion is either missing their tops or bottoms (we received the initial shipment at the end of July). Our IBAs (body armor) is one color (ACU pattern), the ammo and first pouches another color (DCU pattern) and our uniform and helmet color is yet another (BDU pattern)—although, some people have the ACU or DCU pattern for the helmet. This situation is particularly funny if one understands how the Army has historically stressed the importance of uniformity among its soldiers. We really look like a motley crew as part of the new “come as you are” army. Thankfully, these differences are just cosmetic and none of our soldiers are wearing uniforms that jeopardize safety.

Equipment
This is another interesting area. We’ve received a lot of “gee wiz” equipment, the most important of which we’ve had the opportunity to train on. We’ve obtained the new M4’s (the replacement for the M16), Close Combat Optics, PAQ4’s, TVS5’s, PVS14’s, M1114’s (up-armored HMMWVs, most of which we’ll get in country), ASAS-Lite, and a whole bunch more—too numerous to mention.

However, we’ve wasted hundreds if not thousands of thousands of man hours in unnecessarily dealing with equipment issues. It all started back in Wisconsin when we received our first equipment ODD (which is a “go to war” equipment listing). The list didn’t make any sense. For example, we had to inventory and pack up 60 sets of woodland green camouflage nets. Not only is that not the right color, very few units actually use camouflage nets in the Middle East. There were numerous other examples, such as packing equipment that is no longer used (e.g., AN-GRA 39’s) and been replaced by other equipment that we also packed. After packing and leaving this equipment for shipment, we received several subsequent “improved” equipment listings that required shipments back and forth between the mobilization station and Wisconsin. The end result is that we currently have a better overall equipment listing, with only a few quirks (e.g., 1 TA-312, which is a phone that requires to be hooked up with other similar phones in order to talk—which begs the question, what does one do with one phone?). But an unfortunate waste of time and money in the process of getting us to the point where we are now.

With regard to the newer equipment we received, it generally is a morale booster once the soldiers have the opportunity to train on it and feel comfortable with what it can do. It would have been nice to receive some of these items of equipment earlier in order to train on them more (not all equipment that we’ve received has been trained on), especially the lower dollar value items.

I’ve asked my 1SG to interject a little here:

I fully agree with my Commander, I lived next door to him and dined in the same chow hall, I just could not of said it as poetically. This has been a huge learning curve for me. I was a line Company First Sergeant with a different unit before taking this current job for this deployment. The inner workings, all the moving parts and the new names and faces are something to behold. Learning my new soldiers, their personalities, abilities, strengths and weaknesses, how they reacted to the heat and stress and the thought of what the lord has planned for their future and what they brought with them to Mississippi, from knowledge gained from the military and civilian world to family problems with wives, girlfriends and kids. We have several soldiers that are leaving home for the first time (other than their time at basic training). It was tough, going through the training with the soldiers during the day and then doing the meetings and planning at night, I don’t know how my commander kept the pace he did. But by crawling though the dirt and being just as soaked from sweat and stinky as the soldiers we learned a lot from each other. I have a new respect for these soldiers, yes they act like teenagers when they play with the IPODS and video games, but many are still teenagers. But they can put on the game face when need be.