Free State

 

The pictures this week are of buildings on the main drag in Lawrence, the home of Kansas University.  Lawrence is indeed a cool college town with a long history.  It was at the epicenter of the “Bleeding Kansas” events of the 1850s, when residents made a principled stand against the introduction of slavery in the territory.  They fought hard for what was right, at a time when it would have been easy not to, and when there was much to lose.  References to the town’s proud legacy are everywhere today, as in the name of the brewery pictured above.   

Lawrence is on my mind because I went there today to meet an old Army friend.  We ate, talked, watched football, drank coffee, and checked out a couple of bookstores.  

Training here at Fort Riley is drawing to a close.  Last week was a busy one, with several all-day training events leading up to a “Capstone Exercise.”  The Capstone put our team through a series of scenarios meant to test us on everything we have learned over the past two months.  It was kind of fun, driving from one place to another not knowing what was to come next.  By day’s end we had quelled unruly crowds, reacted to IED attacks, broken up an illegal checkpoint set up by insurgents, mediated a meeting of local mayors and police chiefs, searched a house and detained a bombmaker, and performed many other tasks we might face in Afghanistan.

My team did well enough, and good thing, too.  Even if we had performed poorly we’d still be shipping out.  Just a couple of more weeks now.

Liberty Hall, an old Opera House, now a theater and live music venue. John Brown spoke near here back in the day.

Fighting on Arrival, Fighting for Survival

Fort Riley was home to the African-American cavalry troops known as the Buffalo Soldiers. A monument to the Buffalo Soldiers sits just outside of post in Junction City. My first unit in the Army traced its lineage back to the Buffalo Soldiers. We used to sing Bob Marley’s song of the same name in the bars outside of post.

                                                                                                                                                                      The training intensifies as we near the end of the course.  We are out on the ranges almost every day going through scenario-based exercises meant to replicate the kind of challenges we will face in Afghanistan.  A lot involve what the Army now calls “kinetic” action–guns, bullets, shootings, explosions–while others involve knotty mock negotiations with Afghan role-players.  The Afghans who help us train are way cool.  After our training day is over, we talk in relaxed, enjoyable ways about this and that.  Many of the Afghans’ first stop in America was my hometown of Arlington, Virginia.  That always gives us something to gab about. 

We learned this week that we will only have a short four-day break after graduation before we have to report back to Fort Riley for training.  Most of us were hoping for a little more.

   

In the Clear

I’m home for a long weekend.  It’s been nice seeing family and friends, laying low on the couch, and taking care of this and that.

When I was teaching, I tried to not use Army jargon and expressions in the classroom, or anywhere else for that matter. Now, however, avoiding military lingo is hard, and not even advisable.  Army-isms help us communicate quickly and accurately.  Still, the ominpresent acronyms are unimaginative and the unit designations baffling.  For example, my transition team is known by a five-digit “URF” number.  Our headquarters for training is Charlie Battery, 1-5 Field Artillery.  But our mailing address is D Co/101st FSB/1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division.  

Much military-speak is bureaucratic and formal.  For example, we don’t “shit, shower, and shave,” but “conduct personal hygiene.”  Other terms and phrases are more colorful or evocative.  An example is the phrase “movement-to-contact.”  It refers to a mission in which a unit moves through enemy territory, expecting to encounter bad guys, but not sure where or when.  It replaces the Vietnam-era phrase “search and attack.”  Now search-and-attack is vivid and easy to understand, and movement-to-contact something of a euphemism, but I’ve always liked the suggestiveness of the latter phrase.  “Search-and-Attack” sounds like a heavy-metal song title.  ”Movement-to-Contact” could be a tune by a dreamy 80s band like REM or Echo and the Bunnymen.

But most Army slang is blunt and immediately apprehensible.  We call cold-weather clothing such as long underwear, scarfs, gloves, and knit caps “snivel gear.”  Our sleeping bags are “fart sacks.”

A screwed-up operation is a “soup sandwich” or a “cluster fuck.”  A quality person, unit, or piece of equipment is “high speed.”

When we have our radios up and running, we’ve “got comms.”  When we communicate by radio without encryption, we speak “in the clear.”

The current war has generated new, simple-but-graphic ways of talking about combat realities.  Around Fort Riley, some of the civilian employees are ex-soldiers who were medically retired from the Army after suffering wounds in action, a lot of them via IEDs.  When the vets talk about the explosion that did them in, they say, “I got blown up.”  In training, we practice applying tourniquets until we can put them on our buddies as quickly as we tie our shoelaces.  That’s so none of us “bleed out” after getting hit.

October in the Railroad Earth

“October in the Railroad Earth” is the name of a Jack Kerouac story I’ve always liked, especially for its evocative title.  Now it’s October, the window in my barracks overlooks what appears to be the main freight line between Kansas City and Denver, and we spend most of our days out on the high prairie that constitutes the Fort Riley training area.  The weather is spectacular–warm, sunny, and breezy–which makes it very pleasurable to be outside and active.  For all that, Kerouac’s story title seems to be relevant to this particular chapter of my life.

The Taliban would be full of fear to know that I shot 35 out of 40 targets on the qualification range with my M4 assault rifle.  That’s pretty good, better than most shoot, and one short of coveted “Expert” status.  So, I’m only a “Sharpshooter,” but that’s better than being a lowly “Marksman,” or not even qualifying at all.

But the Army makes it pretty easy for us today.  Our weapons are equipped with optical sites that places a red dot on each target at the point-of-aim.  As long as your site and weapon are calibrated (or “zeroed”) and you employ good shooting fundamentals, qualifying is easy.  Your bullet will hit the red dot, and the target will go down.  In the old days, twenty years ago, I used to routinely shoot Expert using only the weapon’s iron sites.  But that was then and this is now, and I’m glad to take advantage of whatever gee-whiz technology the Army permits.

UPDATE ON THE COMBAT SNATCH-AND- GRAB:  All Army Humvees come with towing shackles both front and rear.  In preparation for combat, we attach a nylon towstrap to one of the front shackles.  We then run the strap across the hood of the vehicle, secure it with tape or Velcro, and then attach it to the driver’s-side rear-view mirror in a way that doesn’t obscure the view.  Next, we attach another towstrap to one of the rear shackles, run it up and over the trunk and roof of the vehicle, and secure it to the passenger-side rear-view mirror.  Finally, inside the vehicle we keep an industrial-strength cleavis, or “U-bolt.”

If Vehicle One becomes disabled, but can still roll, Vehicle Two pulls alongside it, with the passenger-side of Vehicle Two in arm’s reach of Vehicle One.  The Vehicle One driver unfastens his towstrap, inserts his U-bolt in a loop at the towstrap’s end, and hands the U-bolt to the soldier riding shotgun in Vehicle Two.   The Vehicle Two soldier attaches the Vehicle One U-bolt to his own U-bolt, which he then secures to his own towstrap. 

Vehicle Two then accelerates and the towstraps rip away from their tape or Velco keepers.  The towline stretches taught, but easily supports the weight of Vehicle One until it is pulled out of danger.

I’ll be home this weekend, and hope to see some or many of you.