Army Acronyms and Expressions.
Just about a week now and I'll be doing Pre-Deploment training at Camp Bullis, TX. Camp Bullis is where we did your final Field Training Exercise (FTX) when I was in AIT last summer. It was hot even during the last week of September when we went, but this time, in July... oh boy. The first two weeks will be classroom instruction just going over things we already learn, but the Army has to fill the block on a checklist saying we know how to perform. That's actually all the next few weeks and months will be. Checking blocks on checklist after checklist all in part of the grander CYA scheme of the Army. Little of it will be actual "training" and I've been told to expect a lot of just straight BS the whole time. We'll see.
The next two weeks will be field training, which if it's anything like AIT was, it means we'll just be doing everything we learned in the classrooms but wearing full battle rattle, outside, all day. It's actually kind of fun once we get to get out there and do stuff. But standing in line in full gear, in the sun, just to walk up and demonstrate you know how to put a tourniquet on a patient is the part I hate. Going out on patrols, running missions, running an aid station, convoys, MOUT... that's the good stuff! Brings back some good memories from AIT...
His name is Robert Paulson
Meet the instructors tomorrow
Past two days were BS
5 More till we're done
6 more till I'm home
These are the first few lines scribbled in a small field journal I kept while out on our final FTX as I learned to become a Combat Medic the last six months.
I didn't write a whole lot on FTX. After a long day of running through the hills in the blistering Texas heat and strength-sapping humidity there wasn't much I had the energy to say. Our days started before the sun came up at about 0345 and ended sometime around 2200 (ten o'clock). We slept in long, air-conditioned tents, and on cots even! But the day's activities were always such that the most you wanted to do was get your gear ready and get your mind right for the next day. Drill Sergeant Blash used to always tell us that... "Getcha minds right 4th platoon... get ya minds right." Pretty much his answer and solution to most of our problems... but good advice.
Each day we did something new. The first day was easy, we just set up our gear, drew weapons from the armory, got issued pro-masks, and learned what was in store for the next eight days. Day two we went out and sent some rounds downrange in a manner that was WAY more lax and fun that during Basic Training. In Basic it seems they're concerned we want to shoot each other, or our mortal enemies, the Drill Sergeants, and was always kind of a pain even though shooting machine guns, M16's, and fully automatic grenade launchers is a lot of fun. For us on FTX though, shooting was awesome. Reflexive fire and Advanced Rifle Marksmanship in a "go out there and shoot some shit up" type environment. Good times.
Day three started our "War Days." These were the four days where we went through scenario based training running a Battalion Aid Station (BAS), going on Patrol, doing MOUT, and conducting Chemical, Biological, Radiological, Nuclear, and Explosives (CBRNE) training.
War days ate me up and spit me out. My platoon had BAS the first day. We set up a BAS in a tent in our FOB, sent out security, and then just sat back and waited for casualties to come in from the patrols that were out on missions that day. If you ever see movie "Home of the Brave" and see that scene in the tent hospital... that's what we did (it stars our WA Guard unit even, and was filmed partially in Spokane). Looked and felt the same as you'll see in that movie too: People yelling and screaming, explosions going on outside, people coming in on stretchers moaning and yelling, fighting you to do something or to treat their buddy... crazy stuff. You really do kinda forget it's all make believe cause the people coming into that BAS have to be medically treated with real supplies and treatment. We were putting real needles and fluids into real people. I remember it in flashes mostly... the first few casualties coming in and we had it under control, someone yelling that we had more waiting outside and nowhere to put them, and instructor coming up to the real life patient I was working on and starting to shake the litter as if the patient was having a siezure while I was trying to start an IV in her arm, explosions going off, Rogers in the back calling in 9-line medevac requests over the radio, telling someone they were going to have to wait for treatment cause their injuries weren't immediate concerns, Taul asking over and over where his buddy was as I was tring to find out if he was allergic to any medications so I could start him on pain killers as three other people were working on bandaging his burns and closing a sucking chest wound, running out to the helicopter carrying patients on stretchers and seeing our security element running next to us firing into the woodline, shapes and figures in the trees firing at us and smoke grenades being popped to give us cover as we waited for the helicopters to show up so we could load the patients and get back to the BAS... And before you go, "Holy run on sentence!" I'll stop there... That was BAS, it was exhausting.
That night we had an hour of pulling security on the FOB so I went to sleep at 2345 wearing the same clothes and no shower after a day of running around in 97 degree 100% humidity weather with full battle rattle. I was woken at 0100 for my hour shift and went back to sleep around 0215 and then woke at 0345 to shave, put on camo, down a canteen of water and get to formation by 0415. You do the math. Sleeping wasn't something we did a lot of during the nights on FTX. That day we went on Patrol, so at 0500 we rolled out on foot to a position north of our FOB to recover the crew of a crashed helicopter that was quickly being tracked down by insurgents in the area. All I knew as the team leader/senior medic was on a small slip of paper I was handed in our pre-mission brief:
OPFOR: Taliban, company sized element, reinforceable
uniforms vary, equipped w/ Soviet small arms, mortars
In location of AO Warrior with support of 25th & 4th ID
Mission: Deny and support. Recover personnel in downed helicopter
located near grid HN39728177 nicknamed "Ambush Alley." Locate, treat,
evac. You will assign three medics, one RTO. Draw as equipment: 1 Talon,
2 SKEDS, 1 SINCGARS radio, and consider three of your team CLS
qualified.
Signals on freq 30350
Medevac on freq 30500 callsign "Dustoff"
Run password: Grape
Challenge: Control/peace
And that was it. We set out before the sun was up to the sound of Arabic music calling the locals to prayer. Even as we were a couple miles from the FOB the only thing we could hear was that music faintly echoing off the Texas hills that may very well have been Afghanistan for how alien it all felt. We occasionally got shelled by "mortars" and explosions thrown by hidden instructors over our three mile cross country adventure would start going off around us letting us know we needed to hurry and get out of the area at a higher rate of speed. At one point a small group of insurgents opened fire as we got within half a klick of the downed helicopter, but that was quickly taken care of as we returned fire and moved out.
We got to our IRP (staging area) and got ready to send in security to secure the crash site while my two medics went in and got the casualties out. Luckily there were only two casualties, which we pulled from the chopper after a brief firefight with insurgents who were hiding in the woods around the crashed helicopter (yeah, a real crashed helicopter was out there in the middle of no where lol). They were brought back to the IRP and me and my two medics treated them to get them stable for transport. We weren't going to get another helicopter to come into that hot of an LZ so we had to hump them out. As my two junior medics finished up with their patients I got the location of the nearest FOB that, suprise suprise, was at the top of mountain about one klick southwest of us. And I gotta say, that was the worst time in the six months I've been gone. We ran almost two kilometers through the hills, returning fire, carrying patients, reacting to indirect fire... We ran up that last hill. It was less a hill than a 50 degree incline of mountain that never seemed to end. I'm gonna shorten this and just say that by the time we got to the FOB and into their aid tent, I collapsed to the ground and started gasping out what was wrong with the patients on my knees. "Twenty-two yr old male, GSW to the left chest, exit wound, amputation left leg, lacerations left arm and right leg, TBI..." But we did it, we were done. "Alright," said our Instructor, "Twenty minute break and then we go out and do it again. Drink water, eat, rest a bit, we'll have an AAR and then be ready." Which we did. Choked down some food cause we were all starving and the sun had just barely come up so you could make sure there weren't any bugs in your MRE and we just... sat there. Breathing heavy, dripping sweat and guzzling water. Taking stock of equipment for the next run. Talking about what went right and what went wrong. You never really rest... that's important to note. A break isn't a break, it's a chance to catch up to where you should be, or prepare for what's next. I miss that. We were on top of it that day, and I gotta say Stovall was a rockstar that day. He was on point the whole exercise. As in had his stuff together. Some of the medics I graduated with were not of... sufficient caliber to report to a unit and be in charge of anyone's wellbeing. Stovall was, he was awesome. Right at might side when I was trying to make decisions for our little unit and backed me up by just doing what was needed when I said it. I had a great group, and we did well. After that break, we took a turn as defending the base, which was more or less just sitting on top of that hill watching the events go on below and relaxing. Loved it. That was probably my favorite day in the time I was away. I love FTX lol! Just... doing my job instead of sitting in a classroom. I love the challenge and excitement of it all.
Anyway, that was AIT. I don't really know what this PDT is going to be like for sure, but I hope at some point we get out there in the field and do some real training, and aren't just checking off boxes on some checklist.
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