AT07-Day 6

Trucks in the field


I didn’t post yesterday, so this post is about the day before yesterday. Fortunately for me, we didn’t do much, so it should be easy to remember.

We went out into the field “today” (I’m having trouble with tenses now that I’m not posting the day of—help?) for the first time. The company we are supporting (who are themselves supporting the Cavalry (note Cavalry, not Calvary; Calvary was where Jesus died)) has established a TOC in the training area in South Post. So our mission changed from hanging out in a parking lot waiting for missions to hanging out in a tree-lined clearing (pictured) waiting for missions.

I may have to retract what I said earlier about going to the field needlessly. It’s nice out here. Pretty. Quiet, as always, except when a vehicle is going by. Nice as it is to go back to a bed and the option of a shower every night, I wouldn’t cry too hard if we had to stay in tents out here.

We didn’t do too much today; the only mission I remember was to replace the water in the water buffalo. Apparently someone was under the impression that it had to be emptied and refilled every day, which I thought wasteful and silly. Fortunately, that got straightened out, but not before we did it the first day.

We had a bit of a problem with it; we couldn't open the drain plug on the back of the thing; the nut was bigger than any wrench we could find, including the extra-large crescent wrench every truck is supposed to carry. So we propped open the spigots and drove down the road, not sure how long it would take to drain at that rate; the thing was half full. Well, when we got to the water point, we found the ACTUAL drain plug UNDERNEATH the tank, which of course makes much more sense. This one was small enough for our wrench, so we didn't have to stand at the water point for half an hour waiting for it to drain. I wonder what the thing on the back is for? Bakos climbed up on the tank to direct the 4-inch hose into the hole. I turned on the pump, and Bakos only sprayed himself once. We had a moment of panic when he told me to turn off the pump. I did, but the water kept going. It got all the way up the neck before stopping. We were afraid we were going to have a mess on our hands.

Since that’s the most interesting thing that happened to me all day, I have room to hold forth on the trucks we're driving (apparently MMS messages have a character limit, which is why yesterday’s post is broken into two parts). The manual is marked “approved for public release,” so I won't feel bad mentioning some technical details (when did THAT happen? Last I remember, truck TMs were marked with a destruction notice to avoid falling into enemy hands. Now they read “distribution unlimited” instead. I was all ready to say I was NOT giving technical details).

The trucks we’re driving this camp have been loaned to us from the 1544th Trans Co. out of Paris, Ill. They got them from the old artillery units that had switched to infantry and didn't need them anymore, to replace the nice new trucks that they took to Iraq a few years ago but some other unit (probably a deploying one) needed them more. The 1544th got nice new FMTVs to replace their old trucks which were of the exact same type as the ones they have now, but were not the actual same trucks; I don’t know where those went. No, the trucks the artillery got were the ones the 1244th TC gave up when they transitioned to Det. 1, 1344th, which used a different type of truck. The 1244th got these trucks when they (we) deployed to Saudi/Iraq for Desert Storm.

So are we getting this? I'm currently driving trucks (called M923A2s) on loan to the 1344th (part of which was formerly the 1244th) that I drove in Desert Storm that were then given to the artillery, then to the 1544th to replace their FMTVs, which replaced THEIR M923A2s that THEY took to Desert Storm. Yeesh.

Anyway, they’re pretty nice trucks, at least when well maintained, which these aren’t, really. The arty beat the hell out of them. They’re not as nice as the FMTVs, which have air conditioning and such, but they're a lot nicer than the deuce-and-a-halfs they replaced. The picture for today shows one of them: our desert tan one in the background (they got painted before we deployed in 1990). The other two are also 5-ton cargos, but different; the one in the foreground is an older model (M923—no “A”, which means revision or update, number) of the same truck, with an identical body, different engine, and old-style tires The one in the middle is an older type, an 800-series Vietnam-era truck with roughly the same capabilities as the others.

They’re 5-ton trucks, which means that that’s their hauling capacity over cross-country terrain. Their carrying capacity over roads is double that. They’re cargo trucks, which means that they’re general-purpose; they can haul ammo, troops, or general goods (there’s another phrase for that I can’t remember), but not containers or (without special equipment) fuel or (non-bottled) water. They've got tarps that can be put on or off by a couple of troops in five or so minutes, and a pintle for towing small trailers (like a water buffalo) or disabled trucks, and on-the-fly three-axle drive.

The version we have (A2) has three major differences from older models: A more powerful, turbocharged, Cummings engine; large, single tires (older trucks had smaller duals on the rear two axles); and CTIS. The Central Tire Inflation System is what made these trucks unique when they were new. What it means is that you can change the tire pressure from the cab. This is much more useful than it may sound. On the highway, you gain nothing from it. But off-road or on gravel or dirt roads, it’s great. Not only is the ride smoother, but you gain a lot more traction, especially in sand. I challenge anyone to get a fully functional, unloaded 923A2 stuck where the tires can get purchase. I don’t think it can be done. Put that b!@*# into 6x6 low transfer Emergency mode and she’ll pull out of almost anything. Unfortunately, the CTIS has a lot of fragile parts and electronics, and breaks easily. And since it isn’t necessary for driving, the mechanics are never in a rush to get it fixed. But it’s awesome when it works. It even has a Run Flat mode where it will constantly keep pressure in any tire that has a leak.

Well, that’s all for now. Toodles until tomorrow.

AT07-Day 5

Aah, what boredom does to you (waiting to load with meals at the TISA—Day 4)


Reading through my old posts, I realized that I’ve never really explained what’s going on here. That’s probably confusing for those who don’t know what “AT07” means.

I am on National Guard Annual Training (usually called AT or Summer Camp)—two weeks every year spent with our unit at some Army base (nearly always Fort McCoy, Wisconsin, for Illinois guardsmen) doing combat training in our job field, in my case truck driving. That's the theory, anyway. In practice, the two weeks always remains the same, but everything else can change. Some years we do “Golden Cargo” missions where we haul loads over the road for the Army and never see a tent (that’s FUN). Some years we stay home and come in a few at a time and drive missions for the State out of the armory, or do “home station” AT where a few of us stay at the Armory and do whatever odd jobs the full-timers have for us. Sometimes (like this year) we get tasked out to support other units going to the field without actually doing much field training ourselves. And sometimes, sometimes, we actually go out as a company, set up our tents, establish a defensive perimeter, get attacked occasionally, and run combat-style missions or LANES training. But that’s rare. I can count the number of times we’ve actually done that as a company since I’ve been in on the fingers of one hand (well, there may have been a few times that that happened that I couldn’t go for some reason).

Those two weeks, plus one weekend every month, constitutes the obligations of the National Guardsman, barring getting called up for State or Federal active duty.

A little about Fort McCoy: First, I’m sick of Fort McCoy. I’ve come here, for one reason or another, probably more times than the number of years I’ve been in the Guard. Several times it’s looked like we were going to go to Honduras, or Germany, or even Egypt, but it always turns out to be Ft. McCoy. Well, we went to Camp Ripley, Minnesota, once. When I first joined, some guys talked about a winter camp they had been on in Alaska. Brr.

Don’t get me wrong; I’ve been other places (barring activations, of course): California for NTC twice (fun!), Fort Campbell, Kentucky. But those were on my own, attached to other units. The only time I can remember that the unit went anywhere other than Fort McCoy or Camp Ripley (or stayed home and ran sporadic missions for year-round AT) for AT was Golden Cargo in Utah. Well, they did a Golden Cargo in New York once, but I wasn't with that time. Still, I've seen much more of Fort McCoy than I'd like.

Nonetheless, there’s good reason why we come here so often: it’s a nice, big (and I mean big; check a map), wooded training area, it has tons of temporary housing, with headquarters buildings and mess halls in each housing area, it’s a Reserve post, so coordination with the Regular Army is not necessary, and it’s not far from Chicago, where many of our units are. It’s a very good, convenient place to bring most or all of the Illinois Guard to train together.

The place has changed a bit in the last few years; besides the ongoing modernization of the barracks (this has been going on for nearly ten years, and I saw them working on one the other day), Fort McCoy has become a major mobilization site (the only site? I heard units from Texas mob from here) for Reserve and Guard units deploying to and from Iraq. They have set up FOBs (Forward Operating Bases) around post to simulate being in Iraq, complete with road signs in Engish and Arabic, simulated roadside bombs (IEDs), minarets broadcasting prayers in Arabic five times a day, and “civilians” walking around in Arabic garb. None of this was here four or five years ago.

It’s pretty here, too: This part of Wisconsin is heavily forested, with a mix of deciduous and coniferous trees, but mainly pine and fir. There's a lake on post that some years we have been allowed to have a company party/picnic at. And they have seriously modernized the facilities in the last 5-10 years: The PX is now almost a shopping center, and the club has gone from an old Enlisted club with a bar and a few pool tables to a real nightclub with dance floors, beer gardens, and loud music called McCoys (which it looks like we won't be allowed to go to this year—darn).

The main thing we did yesterday was pick up dunnage from a Mark 19 range, which took a lot longer than we thought; we were almost ready to leave when the Sergeant Major said, “You’re not leaving, are you?” When we told him that we were going to, he told us that he still had people that had to fire. When we asked how long that would take, he told us fifteen minutes. An hour and a half later, we got loaded and moved out. Then the NCO in charge of us and I dropped the dunnage off at the ASP. We got the Cav boys to load it all on the truck, but there was only the SFC and I to UNload it (well, alright, we had a forklift to help us, but we had to load all the ammo boxes onto the forklift). That’s okay, they had Schwan’s ice cream bars for sale at the ASP for 50¢. I had a caramel cream. Mmmmm.

I’m trying to arrange the ability to go to the gym after duty hours, but it doesn’t look likely. Apparently, we’ve got it fairly easy compared to some of the others; they were out until 2200, whereas we got off at about 18. So they need us in the area in case something comes up. Understandable, but annoying. I could probably get away with running around the Company area, but it’s just not the same. I wish I had that iPod Nano and Nike+ kit; that would probably make running down the street fun. But that's $250 I Just Don't Have.

RUMOR: There are 50,000 troops on Fort McCoy: 25,000 mobilizing, 22,000 demobilizing, and 3,000 at Annual Training like us. I don't believe it; the post seems even less crowded than usual at this time of year, if anything. But it’s a big post; they could easily be hiding somewhere I haven’t seen.

Day 8

The major event of the day was missions similar to the ones we’ve been doing for a few days now; hauling police around. Today I hauled Georgia Department of Natural Resources cops. We went on the same kind of house-clearing detail that we did yesterday. These guys were a lot less well-armed and professional than the Michigan guys we hauled yesterday. The Georgia boys were pretty laid back.

It’s interesting to see the different cultures and attitudes different groups of policemen have. The Georgia DNR cops were good ol’ boys with pistols and bulletproof vests they wore about half the time. The Michigan police were all carrying automatic weapons or shotguns, never took off their vests, and had a much more agressive approach. The California Highway Patrol (Yes, we’re working with CHiPs) are allegedly pretty stuck up and standoffish. This is evidenced tby the fact that they started driving around in a convoy of their police cars instead of using our trucks. This, in everyone’s opinion, is silly and wasteful, but the cars have air conditioning. And look cool. And also take up a whole lot of room on the roads.

I got to drive through some water today looking for any remining residents. It didn’t quite get up to the bumper, but was fairly deep in spots. It would have been foolish to get out and manually check the houses by knocking on doors (the water is contaminated with God knows what), so we drove slowly down the street, honking the horn while the police called out “Police!” occasionally. We came to a T-intersection on one street where the water had subsided somewhat and there was whole lot of mud. So much that there was a car up to its left front fender, tilted over into the mud. I decided it wasn’t safe, and we turned around. The truck could probably have made it, but I didn’t want to risk it, especially since the automatic tire-deflation system in my deuce doesn’t work.

This is a good time for a sidebar I’ve been wanting to do: The new deuces. A deuce-and-a-half, for those that don’t know, is a 2 1/2 ton cargo truck, model M35A2, made famous in many Vietnam-era military movies (Good Morning Vietnam is a good example). Well, some of us are driving the same trucks. And by the same trucks, I don’t mean the same model but a later year. I mean the exact same trucks as were in use in the Vietnam era. I don’t think I’ve run into one that was manufactured after 1971. But they’re good old trucks; they’re simple, durable, have no electronics at all, run on almost any fuel, and are fairly powerful. But they’re also rough, extremely loud, have a manual transmission (the Army has switched to automatic transmission because they found the costs from decreased fuel milage is offset by the savings of not having to replace clutches), and have the old-style tires, with dual tires on each side of the two back axles, and no automatic tire inflation. And they’re usually pretty slow. I was amazed that I got one up to 60 MPH on the way down. In other words, they’re outclassed by every other cargo truck in the current military inventory. Well, someone in the military somewhere came up with a brilliant idea: Instead of getting rid of all of our old deuces, why not upgrade them to put them on a footing with newer machines? And that’s exactly what they’ve done: Completely rebuilt the old trucks into the new, improved M35A3. The A3 version has an automatic transmission, a new, more powerful and much quieter engine, 6 large single tires (instead of smaller singles on the front and four sets of duals on the back) with Central Tire Inflation System (which allows the driver to reduce the tire pressure in order to more easily travel through rough terrain, sand, snow or mud), windshield washers (only wipers before), shoulder seat belts, and other improvements. They didn’t add power steering though. All in all, they’ve brought the old crappy deuces up to par with the much newer 5-tons we have, except for the reduced carrying capacity, and turned trucks destined for the junkyard into deployable, combat-ready vehicles. Cool.

Anyway, after we got out of the water we moved on to much nicer and richer neighborhoods—there are some absolutely beautiful houses here. We made it as far as Loyola University before calling it a day.

Like yesterday, the Lieutenant sent several trucks back after it was time to shut down without waiting for all of them to come in. Smart man. When we first got back, it was announced that it was time for chow, so we all piled into the back of a truck and went to the mess hall. It was open today, but the line was long. It didn’t take too long, though, and soon we were eating. The facility had obviously just reopened; there was only milk to drink, for instance, and the ice cream machine was not working (sob). But the food was good (spaghetti), and I had a slice of delicious pecan pie. There was one odd thing about dinner, though; we had an armed guard watching us eat. When we first got into the building, he was standing at the door, telling people where to go just like a traffic cop. Later (I suppose he got replaced) he was standing in the “mess deck” as the Navy calls it, hand on the butt of his pistol (which was tucked behind the front of his belt) (okay, so I later learned that that was his truncheon/nightstick (no jokes please); his sidearm was where sidearms go; on his side), standing very straight with a grim look on his face, watching us eat and politely asking anyone who had finished eating to leave because there were a lot of people waiting to sit down. While I suppose this might have been a useful function, it did seem that he was taking his job awful seriously. Then some soldiers in our unit who had been in the Navy explained: He was a Navy Master-at-Arms. This cleared things up immediately. He wasn’t just some Joe picked to guard the mess deck who got a bit overzealous; it was his job to be a jerk. Fine. But it was still weird to eat under an armed proctor.

After we got back from chow, it was looking for a while like I would have several hours to rest, polish my boots, work on the blog, etc. Well, it didn’t work out that way. Just when I was about to change into my PT (Physical Training—workout) clothes and start on personal business, the call came that we had to move gear off of working trucks and onto deadlined trucks in order to free the working trucks for missions. This was a perfectly reasonable idea, but no one person was really put in charge and it turned into a cluster (military folks know what word comes after that one). Eventually we got it sorted out and the job done, but by that time it was after dark and time for bed. I was going to blog then, as someone actually ran lights and power to our tent during the day, but by the time I was ready, they had turned off the generator for the night, and I had not been charging my PowerBook for long enough to finish the entry. So I didn’t get very far before it died.

FACT: They have a PX (well, I suppose it’s actually a NAVX—Navy Exchange) set up here. Excellent! I hear they have alcohol from floor to ceiling—all roped off with a sign reading “off limits.”

RUMOR: The Governor (who today I found out was female) has ordered forced clearings of all residents.

INTERESTING SIGHT OF THE DAY: I saw an explicit porn magazine laying open, soaked with water, in the middle of one of the streets.