a mobilized year: Udari Range

06 November 2005

Udari Range

One element of training that we keep up on while in country is weapons training. The other week, we made a trip down to Udari Range in Kuwait. We had an interesting experience.

Udari is a wide-open area that is well suited for a weapons range. It is in a fairly desolate area. Although upon arrival, it wasn’t as desolate as I initially thought. In opening the range, we had to clear it to ensure that no one was "down range." Upon sweeping the area, we saw men in trucks and a bunch of camels (the trucks and the camels were in different areas). We tried to usher the two groups off. Below is a picture of the camels. When they travel in packs/herds, they look pre-historic to me.

Curiously interested in one of the white camels, one of my soldiers (doing what he was told not to do) approached one of the white camels to get a close up picture. Another soldier took a picture of the interaction:

What was funny about this is that after the soldier took the picture of the camel and turned around to walk away, the camel let out a snorting bellow. The camel then started to run after the soldier and chased him for about fifty meters. Camels are fairly fast. In seeing this chase scene, one of my other soldiers concluded that there must have been some sort of mutual attraction between the two.

After we opened the range up, we fired the various weapon systems that we had in order to give guys more trigger time. We also took the opportunity to allow soldiers to cross train on different weapon systems. Here’s another picture:

At the end of the day, we cleaned up the brass and links (like we should have done). Right around dusk, a number of Bedouin appeared. They were very upset. Apparently, they have become accustom to picking up the empty brass cartridges after American military units fire on the range and then they turn around and sell the brass. We apparently frustrated their expectation.

For those who don’t know, Bedouin are small nomadic tribes that roam the deserts. They’re devoutly Islamic, but are not integrated fully with the locals. They typically survive by raising sheep and camels. I’m sure someone will correct me, but I view them as Middle Eastern gypsies.