Best wishes and God Speed

24 May 10

Today we got less than 2 hrs instruction on urban operations and then we went to a town mock-up and practiced tactics and skills. After that we had lunch and each squad was then given the assignment of crossing through town but if you made hostile contact you returned fire and obtained a defensive fighting position by entering the first building possible and securing the room. Each squad got to run the gauntlet twice. We did not have enough time to do it three times each as was our goal. Our squad was fast and efficient so we didn’t get to more than a handful of rounds each. Other squads either had bad luck, encountered blocked doors, made poor decisions, were too slow or left folks behind and had much larger firefights. Probably more fun but in reality they got chewed up. Here is the key: Move together, cover all your sectors, don’t forget the guy watching your six, move quickly and decisively and don’t get in a firefight. Protect yourselves with covering fire as your bust in a door and clear the room and get to safety. The goal is to break contact and stay alive. CAST training is not about attack maneuvers but breaking contact safely. Ten days is not enough time, nor is it the AF mission to attack on foot and mounted patrols. While that is cool and all, it is not our job otherwise the time devoted to such training would be different. However, the skills you are acquiring will significantly help you in that regard if you should fall in with an operation when you need to help out. Unlikely but you will at least have some familiarity with how such engagements work.

All in all today was fun. Don’t stress over such engagements. It is very unlikely that anyone is going to get hurt or called out in a very negative way. The feedback is tame, even if you screw-up so just go for it.

OK, so we are planned to re-locate the camp tonight, set out observations points, hid some spotlights to “highlight” the aggressors if needed, etc. My guess is we are attempting to pull this off too early and will end up being more tired tomorrow than necessary. All in all the camp is OK with the plan. And to be honest the overall morale of the entire camp for the entire week has been very good. Folks have been positive and we have been addressing the negative stuff right away as the senior leaders at the camp.

25 May 10

OK, so we laid in wait for the Cadre and they never showed. Apparently they normally get us up at 0300 on the first day of the FTX or “field training exercise” with some sort of camp attack but it did not come. Call this a self-inflicted wound – we were a little tired today for no good reason. My advice is to not try and outsmart. Air Force News was supposed to meet up with us in the morning and spend the day with us but they never showed. That is the supposed reason we didn’t the 0300 attack. My guess is that if you do get attacked it would be a mortar attack.

Anyway, we started at 0800. We needed some LMT (the new 5-ton truck) so I volunteered to get contingency trained. I like operating vehicles so it was cool and relatively easy. It is an automatic so much easier than the old Duce or 5-Ton to drive. The added benefit today was it rained at times fairly heavily and I was in the cab instead of in the back of the truck getting rained on. Consider volunteering of you like to operate vehicles. Also, in the beginning of the class they are looking for HUMVEE drivers so if you have that on your Gov’t license bring it or be quick to volunteer if more drivers are needed and you like that stuff.

We split the class into two vehicle convoys and headed out in two different directions to accomplish some unspecified mission. Basically, we were to use all the skills we had learned to date to get the job done. So, we drove along spotting IED and then eventually getting both vehicles blow up and taking casualties on the “Rescue Randy” dummies that traveled along in the back of our trucks. Sure enough, the Randy in each truck took major injuries and we had to do first aid on them while providing a secure perimeter. We then called in the IEDs and for a medivac. The Cadre took our blown up vehicles away and gave us coordinates about 1/2 mile or more away. We had to go by foot and navigating with the DAGR GPS systems. Each Randy was on a litter and carried by four guys. Randy is one heavy son of a gun. I was one of the four and it was a bit physically tiring and challenging with the unsure footing off-road. Once we got to the medivac location we encountered a disconcerting local that we held at bay while we loaded the Randys into our trucks which were so graciously returned. We the loaded up and got on our way again. After about 15 mins. of driving and spotting IEDs we got both vehicles blown up again. This time we took no casualties but had to call in the IED. I guess we took no casualties because the IED went off between the trucks and we had good separation. We did our perimeter security, formed up when ready and started out on foot patrol. We safely traversed a small village/danger crossing. Apparently we used good technique because if we didn’t the Cadre hiding in the village was going to nail us with paint balls. We then hiked up the road about a mile and lightning started to the trucks came and gathered us up and brought us back to camp. Due to the weather we never got to go back out the rest of the day. Too bad as we didn’t get to put some of our newly acquired skills to much use. It was a bummer sitting around waiting for the weather to clear. In the mean time we put a movie on in the class room so it was not all that bad.

I hit the gym pretty hard for about 1.5 hrs and then had dinner and called home. Someone up Blackhawk Down on in the classroom but I am writing you and trying to get my iTouch to sync with this new computer. Apple – it is a love/hate relationship. My apps are not working and my music will only play one song before the music program kicks you out. Grumble, grumble. Perhaps with the 7 days I had to wait for my flight I’ll find an Apple “Genius” somewhere. The internet sources have not been helpful in fixing this problem.

Additional thoughts:

- Pre-treat your suede boots with water proofer. Helps keep your feet a little more dry and makes the boots last longer

- If you trash your ABUs, and you will get them dirty but probably not trash them, you can have your UDM replace them. I think we have had two uniforms damaged permanently in the whole camp. However, if you do want to bring BDUs that is still a good way to go. We have had two people out of 55 do that. Summer weight BDUs would be nice because the ABUs are so hot. Remember, we will have ABUs on in Iraq so you choice on if you delay the ABU hot weather acclimatizing.

- Bring liquid laundry soap and dryer sheets. Lots of people are doing small loads ever couple of days. I have done laundry twice and threw my ABUs in with a tent mate’s wash once.

- Bring many sets of PT gear. I have seven but brought four. I wish I brought all seven because you wear PT gear when you are not in uniform and if you go to the gym or otherwise get them dirty you’ll need to wash. I have been going through a set a day…OK I stretched one day but if you go to the gym they will get sweat soaked and you’ll need to wash unless you want to smell like a Yeti.

- Cell phones generally work well here thus your mobile broadband might also…check with your provider because they often are different networks. Some folks have been able to plug in a network cable to their laptop in the classroom. The connection is somewhat limited to don’t expect much. For some reason I never could get my email POP server too work.

- Did I mention a pillow yet? Bring one! I am really getting tired of the rolled-up towel pillow.

- I haven’t used much bug spray or sunscreen but your weather will vary. We have had a lot of cloud cover so it has been humid but no blazing hot. Mosquitoes love to attack in the laundry area so be careful there. Guess how I learned that lesson. They just love my sweet blood.

26 May 10, The Box of Death

Today we turned in our M-4s “white glove clean.” The next order of business was “The Box of Death.” The BOD is where the paint ball gun battle happens. Depending on weather and range availability your individual scenarios will vary. So, here is the deal: First you get goggles, a neoprene mask (the kind used for robbing banks), and an M-4 look alike paintball gun. Paint rounds are loaded into a magazine and inserted into the weapon and then you charge the charging handle. We had a ton of malfunctions on the weapons today. Here are the two most important keys: 1. Pull your charging handle back very hard…be aggressive with it. Look up the mag well and ensure there are no paint ball pieces or other debris in the way. Load a mg and make sure it seats. Most of the hang ups were because folks were not ensuring they really pulled that charging handle back. 2: Ensure your clip and the paintball feed head is clean. Balls will start getting hung up if there dirt or water which swells the paint balls. Occasionally you get a bad feed and a paint ball will get jammed in the bolt area. Pull that charging handle back hard, clear out the crap…maybe fire just air though one time then reload and get back to business!

For us, the BOD was 4’wide x 8’ long x 4’ tall plywood box with shooting windows cut out. Your whole squad of 10-12 or so folks go in the box. On one side of the box about 15 meters out was a HUMVEE. On the other side about there was an LMT 30 meters out. Once the “game on” sign was given an opposing squad that was to sneak up behind the each of the vehicles, do some combat under fire casualty care on a victim in each vehicle and drag the heavy person to safety and do the next level of first aid to include calling in a medevac. The entire time the squad in the box is trying to pummel the rescue forces and the rescue forces are trying to lay down suppressive fire while extracting the victims. The BOD looks like a battle ship with guns pointing out every hole and blazing away. It is like a shooting gallery picking off the rescuers…fun on one side, potentially painful on the other.

It was much more fun to be in the box than being on the rescue teams. The paint balls may or may not hurt. I think I only have one minor bruise. My buddy has a huge fat lip from catching round in the mouth. By the way, the paint balls are not highly accurate. You don’t aim as much as you do point and shoot as if they were tracer rounds.

The single most difficult/physically challenging task you will have is to drag or carry and victim to safety…and do it in the hot sun, wearing a ton of gear and moving a person that is fully geared up at 250 to 300 lbs and over a substantial distance w/o a litter. Never mind the fact you are trying to breathe through a very restrictive neoprene mask. Me and one other Bubba extracted the approx. 300 lb vic from the HUMVEE and drug her 20-25 meters. At the end we were both nearly hyperventilating. Same thing happened on the LMT scenario. The rescue carriers couldn’t make it the 40 meters to safety with the vic. We had to pull two more shooters and put them on the haul crew. This is physically demanding. Be ready for this. Make sure you have enough people to carry and then have others do the deeper first aid when you get to safety as the others will be too winded to do the job well. On the last ½ of the last scenario we got “black flagged” which means the heat and humidity were too high for us to continue with all our gear on so we called it quits.

Note that later in the summer the temps will be even hotter so you might get the black flag on the range more than we did. However, the response is to ditch your body armor and proceed with web belt and load bearing gear or tactical vest for the few people that have those. In addition to lighter gear there will be more frequent rest and water breaks…but the training will go on. In reality, you want the training to continue. While it may seem hard, uncomfortable and strenuous at times you need to experience that now an not when the biomass hits the rotating airfoil. While our training was on a limited scale and the exercises to prove out skills were likewise limited, under the heat of enemy contact the training did come back. I can now clear my weapon (tap, rack, fire) w/o flinching in the least. Likewise I am prepared to deeper level remediation actions like dropping a mag and clearing stuck shells with my fingers. Heck, today with the paint ball rifle I had a malfunction I did my two levels of immediate actions to no avail and then got out my knife and began working on the ruptured paintball that was stuck in the chamber so I could get back in the fight. It didn’t fluster me other than to know I was not covering my sector. Likewise when I came upon the victim in the HUMVEE I immediately assessed what wounds I could see and only addressed the truly life threatening one that required immediate action to save the life (arterial bleed) before doing the extraction and hauling the vic to safety. It was hot, we were under fire, I was sucking wind trying to breathe through the mask, and the instructor was yelling and trying to fluster me but with training I responded correctly. You want training to challenge you physically and mentally so you’ll be more ready when the time comes.

After the BOD fund, next came a catered BBQ lunch provided by me and the other O-5s and the one O-6 at about $100 each. It was delicious and very well received. While you are here you are the leadership so doing something extra for the troops when appropriate is our responsibility. Rudy’s makes great BBQ and they deliver to a place the camp support staff can pick up just in case it makes sense for you.

After that we started cleaning up and turning in gear, did laundry, showered, etc. The move for the night was the Outlaw Josey Wales. I tried but couldn’t make it through the entire move.

I think I will sleep well tonight!

27 May 10, Capture, Death, Escape, and Forward Movement

All we had today in addition to turning in our sleeping bags and leaving was a four hour High Risk of Isolation briefing (how, not to get capture, what do if you do get captured, and escape). I doubt that you will learn much more than you did on the Medium Risk of Isolation CBT that you had to do but this is another one of those fun requirements. You survived the last 10 days. You can survive this and be ready to roll from camp by 1300 hrs.

Now it is time to head out to our various departure and employment locations for 6 mos. to 1 yr. of overseas service where we are not necessarily popular.

Best wishes and God Speed,

Lt Col Gary Lund