The Beer is a Lie! Part Deux!

Later during AT, with only the tune up for the Battalion FTX and the FTX itself to go, brigade decided to give us another break. They scheduled a concert for us in the remains of a quarry.

The remains of the quarry was a nice natural amphitheater. We were told beer would be for sale, and we bought it, again. The lie, that is, not the beer. Instead, all they had was energy drinks for sale. Real smart, it's 108 degrees at noon, and they want to trap us for several hours with no water and only pure caffeine to drink? Do they want us to die from heat stroke? Fucking idiots.

Anyways, the event kicked off with a comedy show. Each company got a shot at making people laugh. Alpha Company came out and bragged about how they smoke their joes, and provided a demonstration, involving a rucksack, rifle, and loincloth. Sadly, they weren't joking. We share a tent with Alpha company, we've seen them do this. It's like watching the monkeys at the zoo. That didn't engender laughter so much as nervous silence.

We were up next. We fell back on the old standard of mocking our superiors. We had the BC complaining about not meeting his salute quotient, the CSM bitching about the water not being ACU pattern, goose stepping OCs executing infantrymen with impunity, and the TOC, complete with spinning plates and circus music. Hilarity ensued.

Charlie Company tried a stand up act that actually got the hook. Delta company just fired their crew served weapons. No one was impressed. HHC has a 1st Sergeant Mishra. He's SF, Ranger, and Airborne. HHC then converted Chuck Norris Facts into 1st Sergeant Mishra facts. There was mild laughter.

Bravo Company won that competition. Then came a break dancing competition between the lieutenants. So that's what they learn in OBC. We had a flyby from an Apache. And then they kicked off the concert. After a rousing rendition of "America, Fuck Yeah!", a local Idaho Rock band, The Unread, kicked off. They were pretty good.

The Unread were followed by Miss Tammi, who I swear had to be here solely as a favor to her brother, Major Reese. She embarked on the worst lip syncing this side of Milli Vanilli. She went through the usual sex songs that are the standby of any female rapper. I wonder what Major Reese thinks of his sister now?

After Miss Tammi, the headliner kicked off. The Sammus Theory, a band from Arizona, named one of MTV's best upcoming bands. These guys were real good. I mean, REAL good. A mosh pit quickly forms. An Army mosh pit is the most violent mosh pit known to man. Rank goes out the window. I laid out Delta Company's CO, and had Bravo Company's 1SGT elbow me in the kidneys. I watched a 1LT and SSG go head to head like a pair of bighorn rams. It was awesome.

The band was great, despite some technical difficulties. Hard Rock. Loud, fast, and energetic. The mosh pit kicked up so much dust, we could barely breath, I can't imagine what it was like for the lead singer.

That night the band slept in our tent, and rode out on the convoy with us for the next mission. After the mission was over, we let them burn out some blanks on our weapons. It was kind of funny watching a band used to playing on top of blaring speakers plug their ears as someone fires a 240B. The guitarist compared it to sex, and lit up a cigarette.

They were great, autographed my CD, and regaled us of stories of some of the bands they've toured with. Apparently Everclear are a bunch of cunts.

The Beer is a Lie!

At least they didn't promise us cake...

Anyways, while at AT, the Brigade thankfully say the idiocy of attempting to cram 3,000 soldiers in the middle of nowhere for nearly a month without any sort of R&R. So about 9 days into it, all the squad leaders went around and asked if we wanted to go to this water park, Roaring Springs, in Boise. We were told that we would be authorized to have two beers each. Hot Damn! Needless to say, I threw my name in as willing to go.

The Brigade rented out this water park for several hours. All after the park would have normally closed, so the park wasn't loosing out on too much income. As we had our accountability formation and safety brief, the platoon sergeant dropped the bombshell on us. Unfortunately, there will be no beer at Roaring Springs, and those of us who volunteered to go, were required to go. Gee, thanks...

Now, the only thing uglier than a brigade with alcohol, is a brigade who had alcohol snatched away from them. The ride over there was hellish. People would not shut up, and they screwed up even the simplest of commands. Part of that was that we were sharing a bus with Alpha Company, and they are essentially the distilled essence of an XBox live chat during a round of Halo 3. Gibbering morons only begins to describe them.

We got to the water park, and a magical thing happened. Every surly and jaded soldier stuck against his will in this besotted desert, suddenly became a 10 year old kid. It was priceless. I saw platoon sergeants racing each other down the twin slides. I saw a captain flip an E-2 in the wave pool. I saw a lieutenant colonel come running up to the line for a slide and gleefully ask what this slide did. I watched 4 squad leaders jump onto a raft and get launched into the blackout tunnel. I watched an empty raft come out the other side of the tunnel, followed by 4 squad leaders one by one.

The lifeguards probably helped the situation out quite a bit. Granted, they were all straddling the jail bait line, but they were still by far the best looking females any of us had seen in almost two weeks. Four hours passed like lightning. Once we all loaded back onto the bus, we looked forward to a late wake up the next morning.

All in all, it was no where near the clusterfuck it could have been. After seeing the effect going from a desert to a water park had on us, I think we might have found the solution to the problems in Iraq. Build them a Wild Waves!

Annual Training 2008: The Rundown

Annual Training 2008

Location: Gowan Field, Idaho
Duration: August 2nd-21st

Average Wake Up Time: 0543
Earliest Wake Up: 0200
Latest Wake Up: 0815

Average Lights Out: 2316
Earliest Lights Out: 1900
Latest Lights Out: 0300

Missions Run: 14
Weight of Battle Equipment: 49 lbs
Flushing Toilets: 0
Showers: 5
Brass Burns: 2
Falls: 3

Rounds fired: 840
MREs Eaten: 30
Cots Destroyed: 1

Movies Watched: 15 (Boondock Saints, Hitman, Borat, Lord of War, Rescue Dawn, The Italian Job, Underworld: Evolution, The Longest Yard, Eurotrip, Enemy at the Gates, 300, Beerfest, The Departed, Rocky Balboa, The Rock)
Books Read: 5 (American Gods, Neverwhere, Cobra II, The Flight of the Eisenstien, Fulgrim)

American Terrorist

So the guard sent me to the Terrorism Research Center's Mirror Image course. This school is an 80 hour program designed to simulate a radical Sunni terrorist training camp, modeled after the Khalid bin Waleed training camps in Pakistan. The idea is to give you a crash course in Arab and Islamic cultural awareness, a brief on how to speak basic phrases in arabic and read arabic numbers, along with detailed studies on major terrorist attacks from Al-Quaeda, the IRA, Hamas, and other groups.

The school was at Camp Rilea from July 20th to July 25th. Upon arrival, they broke us up into cells, and handed out Shawlar Kamishes aka Mandresses to everyone. They're suprisingly comfortable, even with the annoyingly Jared-like pants.

We went down to the "Mosque" and was introduced to our cadre. The "emir" was a former marine who spends most of his time in Palestine, Afghanistan, and Iraq studying terrorist operations. He has a photographic knowledge of a lot of terrorist attacks, down to the names of the most peripherial entities. The "imam" had a masters in Arab Studies from Georgetown and a Certificate of Advanced Arabic Proficiency from Georgetown. He actually knew more about Islam and Arabic than the Iraqi who was taking the class.

We did the whole nine yards, Islamic prayer at 0515, terrorist operations as a cell, eating hummus. Hummus gives me terrible gas.

I was part of a 13 person cell. This included an E-6, two E-5s, three E-4s, an E-3, and a Captain from the same battalion S-2 shop from Ft. Lewis. There was an American working for an information research company, an Iraqi working for a private security company, a Marine Scout/Sniper, and a platoon leader from Charlie company. And I got selected as the Cadre leader. Dammit. Personality clashes abound.

The E-6 got named ops officer, and decided that she wanted the cell to be run like her battalion, with the S-3 running all the planning, and the leader rubber stamping things. At one point when I came to run my plan by her, she hands me a peice of paper and says "this is what we're doing." What the fuck. I wanted to run it like an infantry squad, seeing as we had 13 people, which is a lot closer to the 9 of a squad than the 400+ of a batallion.

There were some really fun missions. Most involved using sim rounds, which fire colored soap instead of hot lead, which is less dangerous and less painful, but you still know you've been hit. They also used some amped up paintball guns, as the wicked welt on my tricep attests. They also had a familiarization course on the AK-47. The AK is a simpler weapon to break down than my M-4, however, it's got kinda a cheap feel to it, and a block safety and charging lever that make the weapon pretty much designed for left handed firers. It's a real pain to try and use off the bat as a right handed shooter.

Among the guest speakers was former CIA agent, and author of Imperial Hubris and Marching Towards Hell, Michael Scheuer. While there are aspects of his ideas that I agree in, his complete amoralism is terrifying.

Aside from the knowledge I gained from the class, I also got to keep the Shalwar Kamish, a copy of the Quran, and a signed copy of Marching Towards Hell. Awesomesauce. I honestly think that everyone who is going to deploy to the middle east should take this course.

Misadventures on Fort Lewis.

Wow, real long drill this time.

The entire battalion hauled themselves up to Fort Lewis, the nearest major Army base, for some heavy duty training. Being already in Washington, I got the go ahead from the platoon sergeant to report directly to Ft. Lewis, rather than driving 7 hours to Corvallis, spending 5 hours going back to Ft. Lewis, riding a bus for 5 hours back to Corvallis, and then driving 7 hours back to Port Townsend. Thank God, he saved me about $200 worth of gas.

We rolled up Thursday night, and immediately racked out. My platoon had to pull guard duty that night. I was practically dripping with excitement... no, wait, that was just the rain that night. I was tabbed to pull guard from 0400 to 0430, and wake up was at 0600. That does wonders for my energy levels the next day.

On Friday morning, we started the day with Short Range Marksmanship, or SRM. It was our only Live Fire range of the drill, and as such, the most dangerous. SRM consists of learning to shoot out of muscle memory at short ranges in different positions. Facing various directions, on the move, behind cover, and through portals. Because my own weapon was deadlined, I didn't get the opportunity to have a weapon that was zeroed to my particular style, so I had to use Kentucky Windage to account for that. It didn't look too pretty. To make the portal firing even more complicated, I couldn't just shove the barrel into the portal like some people could, due to my underslung 203.

After we wrapped up the SRM, the Brigade commander came and spoke to us about the upcoming deployment. I'll cover that in another post.

Because our platoon finished up early, the Platoon Sergeant decided to take us over to the adjacent sewer mock up, and show us how to clear a sewer system. There was no sewage in it, thank God, but the pipes started at a 4' diameter, and got smaller from there. It was hell on my knees.

After the company had their fill of SRM, we were loaded into a few deuce and a halfs, rucks and all, and shipped to our next training. While loading the deuce, one of the NCOs yelled for all the privates to pile on top of the rucks in order to seat all the NCOs. I knew that promotion to E-4 would have it's perks. :)

The next training was the HEAT, or Humvee Egress Assessment Training. One of the leading causes of deaths in theatre nowdays is a Humvee roll over killing the gunner. So they built these simulators. They're a mockup of the interior of a Humvee, but it's mounted on a gimbal so they can flip it and roll it. They stuffed us inside it, and showed us the rollover angles, 25% for an 1151, 30% for an 1114. Then they roll it over, and tell us to get out. If you've ever been inside a Humvee, you know it's a pretty cramped ride. I could barely move, and it took some contortionism in order to sort out how I was going to get out of the thing once it flipped over.

After everyone had their runthrough in the flipper, we piled back onto the deuces, and rolled out to the Convoy Fire range. Once there, we ate dinner, and sorted out who was riding in what truck. As a 203 gunner, I was relegated to being a dismount. Which essentially meant that I sat in the back of the vehicle, and tried not to look too bored. Things happened, other things exploded, I got out, stood by a tree pulling security, listened to other people shooting at the opfor, tried to keep the ants off of me, got back in the Humvee, and that was it. I was thoroughly bored with the whole thing.

Thankfully, that was the last training of the day. We racked out, and second platoon got to pull guard, and I actually got to sleep. Yay.

On Saturday morning, We kicked things off with a mounted traffic control point, or TCP. We rolled out to the site in our vehicles, and rushed to set up the signs and concertina wire to create the checkpoint. As usual, I got to pull lateral security. After the first vehicle passed through the check point, my squad leader came by and told me that they had found a railroad running parallel to the road on the other side, and they wanted me to go secure it to ensure no one could bypass us. Ok. As I pushed through the brush to get to the railroad, I saw a head pop up. The Opfor. I lit him up, and then SPC Munch, who was pulling short security on that side lit him up. In response, he pulled out a grenade sim, and threw it at me. I decided at that time it would be prudent to seek less dangerous grounds. As I pulled back behind cover. The opfor disappeared back into the woodline, never to be seen again. We rolled up the TCP, and called index.

Next on the menu was a dismounted TCP. We came upon our site, and established security. To prevent a situation like had occurred on the last iteration, I got tasked with immediately scouting the woodline for any avenues of approach. I found a nearby road about fifty meters out, so my new task was to pull security on that road. In a grove of Scotch Broom so tall I could barely see over it. Apparently, the search team got hit with a car bomb, then they dialed in some mortars in on us, and the whole time, I there, standing in the scotch broom, not seeing a damn thing. Oh, and trying to keep by partner from dying from his allergies. How fun. We broke contact after the mortar fire became sustained, and headed back to the TAA.

Back in the deuces... I think my foot was sawed off by a displaced KABAR... No, just numb.

We arrived at Leschi Town. Leschi Town is the most awesome urban combat range I've ever seen. Every building has furniture, every door can be breached, it's amazing. We ran a negotiation mission, where we were supposed to march into this neighborhood, while the PL conducts negotiations with the mayor. The goal was to convince the mayor to let us search the houses for weapon caches and insurgents. Each team got assigned to guard a building, and proceed to search it once the mayor arrived. My team got tasked with the two story behemoth. Which also turned out to be crawling with all the insurgents in the village. Fun!

As soon as the Mayor came out of his house, the insurgents decided to try and attack us. My team rolled right into the house, and cleared the bottom floor, leaving a trail of dead opfor in our wake. We killed 3 opfor on the first floor, and went to secure it so the adjacent teams could come in and clear the second floor. As I went to secure a room, I saw a flash of movement outside the window. I went and checked it out, thinking it was another opfor. Then I saw an M-107 strapped to the guys back, and decided that I was outclassed. Turns out that a special forces group was conducting a live fire sniper exercise in Leschi Town, and the sniper team decided to stalk through our AO. They also had the medics doing their training to the east. You don't want to know how the Special Forces Medics get practical experience. Those poor animals...

On the second iteration, things got a little uglier. The insurgents were spread to two different buildings. One was adjacent to the house we were guarding. When we took contact, we stacked at the side door. That door had a window nearby, I took a quick glance, and spotted one of the opfor inside. She pointed something at me, and I ducked back around the corner. A nerf football went flying out the window at incredible velocity. Turns out she had the simulated RPG. The simulated RPG was a piece of PVC Piping attached to an air compressor, with a nerf football crammed down it. It actually launches them pretty fast, and I'm sure it would hurt to get pegged with it. I sprayed her down through the window, and linked up with Corporal McGuffie inside to clear the rest of the first floor. Things quieted down after that, and I spent the rest of the iteration pulling security on the building.

Once again, back into the deuces. This time came with a twist. Because of the live fire sniper exercise, every road for five miles down range was shut down. So the drivers had to find new and exciting routes to get to our next range at Reagansville. They also had to hit every pothole and bump in the road on the way. Deuce and a halfs have no suspension for the rear beds, so every bump is really jarring. After we went up a hill, around the hill, down the hill, only to hit the exact same pothole as we had 20 minutes ago, people lost it. People either started laughing, or cursing, or both. It was hilarious.

After almost an hour crammed into the back of the dusty, overheated, and uncomfortable deuces, We arrived at Reagansville. Our mission was to conduct a raid on a two story building. We moved out into the woods, and setup an ORP out there. As the Platoon Sergeant took the squad leaders on a recon to scout the objective, the NCOIC came by and asked me why I was on a knee, and not in the prone like everyone else pulling security. This lovely little exchange occurred.

"You need to get in the prone, specialist."

"Do you see that, sergeant?" *Pointing at nearby plant*

"Yeah, so?"

"Do you know what it is?"

"No."

"That's poison oak, Sergeant, and it's all over the place."

"Oh... Carry on, specialist."

Yeah, I'm not planning on repeating last time I encountered that foul plant. The PSG returned, and we set up our raid. The three key principles of urban combat are Speed, Suprise, and Violence of Action. We had all three in spades. We rolled up on them, and our pointman, SPC White, managed to shoot every last opfor there, before any of us had a chance to get in on the action. We ran in, charged up the stairs, and cleared the whole two story building in about 20 seconds. Personally, I didn't like the lead element going straight to the second floor without clearing the first floor, because if the second element gets bounced before securing the first floor, you have no where to go, and will most likely get killed. But it worked out well.

we went to sleep the night, and woke up the next morning for a battalion formation. Nothing special happened. I got released to return home. Being hungry, I stopped at an IHOP for breakfast. I had a pair of banana walnut pancakes, two sausage links, some hashbrowns, and two eggs sunny side up. So good. I need to eat there more often.

Upon my arrival home, I said hello to the family, dropped my gear, and immediately dunked my sore and filthy body into a bathtub full of near boiling water. Once I was numb to the scalding heat it felt so good.

I fell asleep at 5 PM out of sheer exhaustion. At 8PM, my adorable little sister knocks on my door, launching my nude form out of bed from the sheer power of suprise. I wasn't sure of anything, who I was, where I was, what was happening, or how to speak english apparently. She got enough out of my raved babbling to figure out not to open the door. She sweetly informed me that Jeff was here. What the hell? Oh well, I put on some clothes, and staggered out to hang out with him.

We went over to his girlfriend's place, and played Super Smash Bros Brawl, and eventually got a raging campfire going outside. We hung out around the fire, smoked some cloves using unorthodox lighting methods, and discussed many random things, including the most morbid, yet ingenious business plan I have ever devised. Jeff produced a flint magnesium block the size of a hand eraser, and chucked it into the fire. That shit burns bright. It was hilarious. Before we knew it, it was 2 AM, and we realised we should probably get some rest.

Brother, Can You Spare a Dime?

Because I know that all my readers just have tons of money lying around that they really don't know what to do with... :)

Money's tight with me too, but if you've got some spare coin that you could afford to part with, let me make a couple of suggestions as to where you can direct it.

The first is a conglomerate of non profits called Soldiers' Angels. They have all sorts of services to assist soldiers, and the people who support the soldiers, with the hardships of military service. Pretty much anything you want to do, they can point you in the right direction.

Want to help soldiers wounded in the line of duty? The Eagle Cane Project sends hand carved canes to soldiers with leg injuries. First Response Backpacks provides a bag with everything an injured soldier needs in his initial days of treatment while still in country. Valor-IT gives a soldier with a hand injury a laptop computer designed to be operated with his injury.

Perhaps you want to help those left behind by deployed soldiers? Operation Outreach provides for the families left when soldiers deploy. Guardian Angels looks after the pets that soldiers have to leave behind.

For the more traditionally minded, Adopt a Soldier is always a classic. Angel Bakers is a tasty alternative. Operation Phone Home provides one thing that a lot of people don't think about as a real need, phone cards.

No matter which you choose, you can feel comfortable that your donations are going to a worthy cause. You can find all these programs, and many more, at the Soldiers' Angels homepage I linked to earlier.

The second group is the United Service Organization, or USO. While Soldiers' Angels allows you to specify what your funding goes to, the USO does it all. They give shelter from the mind numbing boredom of the airports we frequent during TDY flights. They bring out Actors, Athletes, and Musicians to keep morale high. They help soldiers put a roof over their head during overnight layovers. They offer emergency support, support groups, and even nursery care for military families. They have facilities in 21 states and 10 countries. The USO knows how to help the soldiers, better than any organization out there. They've been at it for 67 years now. Wherever the military is sent, the USO is there to support them. As the USO says, "Until Every One Comes Home."

Never forget...

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.


We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved, and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
— John McCrae



I would like to take a moment on this Memorial Day, to thank my father, my grandfather, and all my brothers in arms who have served this great nation.

And to those who have given their last for our cause, I'll never forget the sacrifices you've made.

Another Drill.

Another weekend sacrificed to Bravo Company. We spent Friday doing preventive checks and maintenance (PCM) on a lot of the equipment the platoon has. Fun, fun, fun... We started with our weapons. This is my rifle, sort of... I use an M-4, which is basically the ubiquitous M-16, with a shorter barrel, and a collapsible stock. There's an M-203 mounted underneath the barrel. The M-203 is a 40mm self propelled grenade launcher. Instead of a ghost ring iron sight, I have an M-68 close combat optic, essentially a laser sight. And mounted on the top rail, I have a PEQ-2, which is a laser sight that can only be seen through night vision goggles.

I sat down at the table, and broke down the weapon, ensuring it was clean and going through the PCM tasking, step by step, making sure the weapon will work when my life depends on it. When I began breaking down the bolt carrier assembly, I noticed a huge chip taken out of the gas tube. Yipee, my weapon's gonna be deadlined! Again... I had just gotten her back from having the crater in the star chamber repaired, a whole new upper receiver. Now I'll probably have to wait until they can scrounge a new bolt carrier before I get it back again. Argh.

After I turned my weapon in, my squad leader tasked me to verify that the company's brand new bunch of PAS-13s worked. The PAS-13 is a new thermal optic scope. It's bulky as fuck, pretty much useless for anything other than recon, but it's sooooooo cool. The PAS-13s were followed up by an inspection of the PVS-14s. These are monocular night vision goggles. Good stuff. After that, we inventoried the PVS-7s, the older binocular night vision goggles, that just suck. They were old, and missing pieces. The fun level was further crushed when a brand new NCO decided to supervise what I was doing. apparently he didn't think me competent enough to check if something works by myself. Despite the fact that I had already finished 3 PVS-7s, 10 PVS-14s, 5 PAS-13s, and my rifle, he thought it necessary to stop me and try to give a full lesson on how to conduct a PCM. I told him I had things in hand. He flips out and goes on a rant.

"If you don't listen to me, how are you gonna know if you have the dermis shield, the sacrificial window, or the... whatever the hell that is!"

"That's a strap, sergeant..."

"Shows how much you know, it's a..."

*flips to the itemized list, checks item 14*

"OK, so it is a strap, but that doesn't mean you're all hot shit!"

He proceeds to spend the next 5 minutes yelling at me about how if I was half as good as I thought I was, I'd be a general. I just chuckled to myself and kept working. I found it particularly entertaining when he started asking me what certain parts were, even though I apparently wasn't smart enough to conduct a PCM without his holding my hand not 15 minutes earlier. I wound up finishing the PCMs on 6 PVS-7s, he did 3.

After we finished all the PCMs on the equipment, we got herded into a classroom, where our new platoon sergeant broke down the promotion system. Learning how to climb the corporate ladder. I really appreciated this, because no one had really stopped to break down how all that shit worked in the guard to me. I have a real good feeling about our new PSG. He might not be able to replace our old one, but he knows what he's doing, and he knows how to handle soldiers. It was a good end for Friday.

Saturday started up with some refresher on small unit tactics. No big deal. In the off time, we swapped stories, most of which I probably won't repeat here, or anywhere. We then had a TA-50 layout, to ensure we had everything we needed for the upcoming deployment. In between, we broke for lunch, and we were allowed to go pretty much wherever we wanted, given the fact that we were allowed an hour and forty minutes to go eat.

So we were off to McMenamin's. On a Saturday, at noon, things are pretty slow. But the servers that day were just flat out gorgeous. Our server was a beautiful girl named Robin. Joe, yes, the same Joe off the recent 21st birthday, demanded that they put the Red Wings game on. The unstable sergeant from Friday decided to join us, and while most of us either watched the game, or played pool. Not Sgt. Psycho though. He proceeded to spent the majority of the time there trying to stare a hole through Robin's pants every time she came by.

I noticed noticed Robin was watching the Hockey game, when she wasn't serving someone. Sick of having the same conversations with the same people over and over, I walked over to her, and struck up a conversation. Just a little small talk about sports, school, and work. The rest of the guys gave me shit about it for the rest of the day. Whatever. It was worth it.

On Sunday, we were going out to Camp Adair, to build upon the training done on Saturday. So we drew weapons. Not wanting us to dirty up the weapons that we had cleaned and PCMed on Friday, they issued us the remainder of the weapons. Of course, my M-4 was now deadlined. So I got the last weapon available. An M-240B. A 28 lb hunk of steel that weighed twice as much as my normal weapon, and was about 4 times as unwieldy. Running with that thing sucks, running with that thing through the woods, really sucks. On the bus ride to Adair, Sgt Psycho sees that I don't have my usual weapon, and decides to take a couple of potshots at me. Told me that I finally had something I didn't know a damn thing about. Whatever, it might not be my primary weapon, but I know how to use it. I biffed it on a couple of areas that were thick with logs when we were assaulting through some objectives. It was irritating. Things reached their peak when we had our platoon movement to contact lane. I wound up in the assault element, and had to advance by bounds. I got up and ran, and as I dropped down behind cover, all of a sudden the barrel just dropped into the dirt. I looked over, and realized what happened. See those study looking bipod legs on the gun? Sheared 'em clean off. Whoops.

Meanwhile, some reporter for the Democrat Herald was taking pictures, setting up a story he's writing on the guard. I tried to be civil with him, because most of the other guys weren't. Most soldiers who've deployed OIF or OEF are paranoid of reporters, because the coverage from the media in Iraq and Afghanistan is so ridiculously slanted against the military that anything that gets said, or done, is used to demonize us and what we're trying to do. But good publicity is easier to come by inside the US, and is always helpful, so I tried to put my best foot forward.

We marched back to trans, and during the AAR, I'm sitting down next to the gun. SGT Psycho comes over and looks at me smugly, he looks down at the gun, sitting on the ground without the bipod. He picks up the 240, and tries to engage the bipod, only to realize that there no longer is one. Yeah, I'm not an idiot, what a surprise. We took trans back to the armory, and cleaned our weapons. I wrote out a 5988 form for the 240 I broke. We sat through another briefing on VA and Vet Center protocol, which was good, because too much of their resources are drawn up by Vietnam era treatment, and they're just now starting to understand the modern war. I'm surprisingly exhausted, but I haven't been able to con myself to sleep yet. I figured I'd do something productive in the meantime.

Resolve to Win

Thanks to Blackfive for bringing this to my attention.

There is a group, calling themselves "Resolve to Win", composed of retired servicemen who returned from duty in Iraq, who have decided to march from South Carolina to Washington DC. They have the expressed goal of increasing American resolve for victory in Iraq. They are now in day 12 of their 16 day march, intending to finish in 4 days, in front of the Lincoln Memorial.

I haven't heard anything about them in the mainstream media. But they have a well written and well planned blog that can be found at http://www.vfwwebcom.org/ResolveToWin/.

In my opinion, the possibility of victory in Iraq has never been a question. The American military is orders of magnitude stronger than any other on the planet. The question has always been weather or not the American people have the fortitude to let the military do its job.

Card Carrying Member of the E-4 Mafia.

Well, I apparently impressed someone at drill this past weekend, because after I gave a class on military reports, my squad leader and PL pulled me to the side and informed me that the CO was signing a time in service waiver to promote me to Specialist ahead of schedule. Hot damn.

On the upside, that equates to about $30 more per drill, $100 more per AT, and around $3K more in the event of a deployment. On the downside, the CO pulled me aside and congratulated me on showing "knowledge above my pay grade", and that he "expected it of me from now on." No more slacking. Damn.

Outside of the promotion, drill was the same old, same old. Periods of fun training, stuck in a mesh of overwhelming boredom. We did NBC training, working with the new JLIST suit, which is much more comfortable than the old MOPP suit. We followed that up with heavy weapons training on the Mk. 19 and M-2. One of the M-2s I disassembled had a serial number of 6664. Given that the M-2 has been produced from 1919 onward, that low of a serial number was probably built back in the forties. It still worked like a charm too. to close out the drill, we got some time in the Humvees to continue convoy training. It was good stuff.

The Pain Beam

This satellite dish looking thing adorning the top of the Humvee to the left is the Active Denial System (ADS), more colloquially known as the US Military Pain Beam.


the ADS is a vehicle mounted, less than lethal, directed energy weapon. It has the intended purpose of being used for riot control. It attains said control through the use of a stream of electromagnetic radiation at 95 gigahertz to impart energy to the water molecules in the human skin. If that sounds familiar, it's because your microwave does the exact same thing, only at 2.45 GHz, not 95 GHz, and to a TV dinner, not a human being. It's the same principle, though. The high energy level of the water molecules imparts the sensation of extreme burning, without the permanent damage or bad smell. And with a range of nearly 700 meters, it keeps the operator out of the range of thrown rocks and clubs, the staple weapons of rioters.


In over 10,000 tests of the ADs on humans, there have only been two incidences of serious injury. Both were second degree burns, hardly fatal, or life changing.


This weapons system provides the possibility for less than lethal force to be applied at distances which render the situation controllable. Most less than lethal weapons employed by the military or police force has a range on 25 meters or less. The Self Propelled sponge grenade has the longest range, at 50 meters. The ADS's range is 14 times that.


The ADS has proven itself to be more effective than CS gas in crowd dispersal, because CS has a tendency to incapacitate people and leave them on site, whereas the ADS causes people to flee reflexively. This weapons system would make its money in situations where there previously was no middle ground between lethal force and no force. A prime example would be the Sep 12th, 2004 riots in Baghdad were civilians attempted to loot a damaged Bradley Fighting Vehicle. An Army helicopter ordered the civilians to disperse with his bullhorn, and when they continued to swarm the vehicle, the helicopters dispersed the crowd with the next step up in their arsenal, a 30 mm chain gun. 13 people were killed, including a Palestinian reporter. The ADS could have dispersed the crowd without the need for bloodshed.


The Pain Beam is up for approval to be deployed in country to units. It has already been rejected once before, due to the political controversy over the Abu Gharib abuse scandal. Politicians fear that the ADS will be used maliciously, to burn and torture prisoners. Anyone who's watched Reservoir Dogs knows that torture doesn't require a high tech weapons system, just a razor, gasoline, and a matchbook. And while politicians fear the political backlash of deploying the weapons system in Iraq, I think that this system is far more humane than CS Gas, and certainly more humane than a bullet.