Sunday, March 06, 2005
Going Internal
Going "internal" is what happens to someone when they have given up, the elements and the stress of their environment have beaten them; they are no longer in control. All of their thoughts are focused on their personal needs and pain, getting comfortable again is all they are concerned about. A Marine officer can not do this, there are too many people depending on him or her. It is outwardly obvious when someone has gone internal, their head and shoulders sag, their eyes stare off into space, not really looking at anything. It is truly a sad sight, they look like someone who just saw their dog run over by a car.
This was the battle of WFEX 1. In itself, WFEX 1, or FEX 1 as we call it, is not that difficult. We work hard during the day, but we are scheduled for six to seven hours of sleep per night, which is unheard of for a field exercise. This time, mother nature fired her best shot in an effort to break us.
We started FEX 1 on Monday with the temp around 32 degrees. It had already been snowing a little and it snowed the rest of the day. All day the snow came down as we patrolled and assaulted the CRF forces (played by enlisted marines in instructor battalion). The snow melted on our uniforms, soaking us through before the day was even half over. As it piled up, our movement became more difficult. It sucked at our boots as we trudged through the mess and we slipped on it as we tried to charge toward our enemy. The only good thing I could take from it was the fact that it made our impact with the ground a little less painful. But any time spent on the ground quickly led to frozen legs and elbows. Ever frozen yourself to the ground? I have.
When your clothes and boots are already wet, they don't provide much warmth. You have only one extra pair of camoflauge utilities with you, so you have to decide if you should change now and risk not having a dry pair should things get worse later, or save them and suffer through another day with wet cammies?
Day two wasn't so bad, we were working on the defense. I was appointed squad leader by our staff platoon commander, Captain Sullivan. I made several mistakes throughout the day, but I feel like I made the intelligent mistakes one makes due to inexperience, not lazy or stupid mistakes. I think he was pleased with my performance, but there is no formal grading so I may never know. The fortunate thing is that as squad leader I was so busy I didn't have time to be cold. My cammies were soaked through, but I was generating so much body heat that I was warm. While moving towards the objective, I had to move about the formation in order to maintain control of the squad. In the assault, the squad leader is screaming direction to his squad as well as rushing towards the target. After the assault, the squad leader runs between the three fire team positions in order to ensure they have their weapons pointed at key terrain and likely enemy avenues of approach. Then, once they start to dig in, he must ensure that they are doing that properly. All I had to eat that day was two powerbars. Long day.
Day three was the ass kicker for platoons 1,2, and 3. We had range 5, the live fire squad assault range. It's about three hundred yards of rushing over hills and shooting at pop up targets. Under ideal circumstances it would be tiring, under these it was exhausting. This day was a little warmer, temps were in the lower 40s, so the snow began to melt. Great. But the wind picked up and we were now on a range in the middle of a clearing. Fuck. The course turned into a muddy pit. Rush forward, drop to your knees, slide for a few feet, plop down into the mud, repeat. By the time we were done we were covered in mud. A couple of times I tried to get up to rush forward, slipped, and fell back down. Frustrating, but the mission must continue. We did one dry run in the morning then two runs with live rounds in the afternoon. We were scheduled to do one dry and one wet at night, but the wind was so strong that we couldn't keep illumination flares in the air long enough to allow us to fire safely.
Day four was the light at the end of the tunnel. I put on my dry cammies that morning and I felt like a million bucks. Little things mean a great deal to you when you are in the field. We started the day with a first aid pracitcal application exam. Not a big deal, just your basic CPR and treating wounds stuff. Then it got cool.
We weren't sure what we'd get for the close air support demonstration, but we lucked out. We got two Cobra helicopter gunships and two Navy F-18 Hornets. Red Dog 41 and Red Dog 42 (the Cobras) went to work first, firing their 20mm canons at the rusting tank hulks on range 7. After several minutes of that, Joker 11 and Joker 12 checked on station, and one of our instructors started to talk him onto target. That took a while. Their first bomb, a laser guided Mk76 (inert practice bomb) hit the target. After that, the Navy didn't do so well. Their next two bombing runs produced no visible effects and the ground controller called to ask why. The bombs were "hung and locked." Apparently, some ordnance guy at the Navy base the F-18s came from neglected to unlock the bombs before take off. Way to go Navy. The strafing runs were pretty fucking cool. They came in low, maybe 400 feet off the ground, and fired their 20mm gatling gun at the tanks. The F-18's gun has a much higher rate of fire, about 6,000 rounds per minute. It sounds more like a growl than a gun when fired. They made several gun runs then a high speed pass over our position. Cool shit.
The rest of the day was calling for fire, we had 105mm canons firing for us. It is pretty damn cool to pick up the radio and have someone from a position several miles away rain high explosive steel onto a target you pick. Big power trip.
The week was a test to say the least. Last Sunday I talked with my parents about the week coming up and the hellacious weather that we were facing and we had a pretty good chat about existing with the elements, not fighting them. There were several times that I was thinking about how much I hated the weather, how miserable I was, how much I wanted to be somewhere else. I could feel myself going internal. Shifting my thoughts to what I had to do, instead of my aching hands or numb feet, allowed me to regain focus. I have had some trying field exercises, but never so miserable. The company commander was very close to calling it off, the weather was that bad. The Marine Corps doesn't call off training very often, there has to be danger of serious injury or death for us to call an exercise off. All of our instructors told us that we had recieved a serious kick in the gut and had come through well. I believe them this time.
This was the battle of WFEX 1. In itself, WFEX 1, or FEX 1 as we call it, is not that difficult. We work hard during the day, but we are scheduled for six to seven hours of sleep per night, which is unheard of for a field exercise. This time, mother nature fired her best shot in an effort to break us.
We started FEX 1 on Monday with the temp around 32 degrees. It had already been snowing a little and it snowed the rest of the day. All day the snow came down as we patrolled and assaulted the CRF forces (played by enlisted marines in instructor battalion). The snow melted on our uniforms, soaking us through before the day was even half over. As it piled up, our movement became more difficult. It sucked at our boots as we trudged through the mess and we slipped on it as we tried to charge toward our enemy. The only good thing I could take from it was the fact that it made our impact with the ground a little less painful. But any time spent on the ground quickly led to frozen legs and elbows. Ever frozen yourself to the ground? I have.
When your clothes and boots are already wet, they don't provide much warmth. You have only one extra pair of camoflauge utilities with you, so you have to decide if you should change now and risk not having a dry pair should things get worse later, or save them and suffer through another day with wet cammies?
Day two wasn't so bad, we were working on the defense. I was appointed squad leader by our staff platoon commander, Captain Sullivan. I made several mistakes throughout the day, but I feel like I made the intelligent mistakes one makes due to inexperience, not lazy or stupid mistakes. I think he was pleased with my performance, but there is no formal grading so I may never know. The fortunate thing is that as squad leader I was so busy I didn't have time to be cold. My cammies were soaked through, but I was generating so much body heat that I was warm. While moving towards the objective, I had to move about the formation in order to maintain control of the squad. In the assault, the squad leader is screaming direction to his squad as well as rushing towards the target. After the assault, the squad leader runs between the three fire team positions in order to ensure they have their weapons pointed at key terrain and likely enemy avenues of approach. Then, once they start to dig in, he must ensure that they are doing that properly. All I had to eat that day was two powerbars. Long day.
Day three was the ass kicker for platoons 1,2, and 3. We had range 5, the live fire squad assault range. It's about three hundred yards of rushing over hills and shooting at pop up targets. Under ideal circumstances it would be tiring, under these it was exhausting. This day was a little warmer, temps were in the lower 40s, so the snow began to melt. Great. But the wind picked up and we were now on a range in the middle of a clearing. Fuck. The course turned into a muddy pit. Rush forward, drop to your knees, slide for a few feet, plop down into the mud, repeat. By the time we were done we were covered in mud. A couple of times I tried to get up to rush forward, slipped, and fell back down. Frustrating, but the mission must continue. We did one dry run in the morning then two runs with live rounds in the afternoon. We were scheduled to do one dry and one wet at night, but the wind was so strong that we couldn't keep illumination flares in the air long enough to allow us to fire safely.
Day four was the light at the end of the tunnel. I put on my dry cammies that morning and I felt like a million bucks. Little things mean a great deal to you when you are in the field. We started the day with a first aid pracitcal application exam. Not a big deal, just your basic CPR and treating wounds stuff. Then it got cool.
We weren't sure what we'd get for the close air support demonstration, but we lucked out. We got two Cobra helicopter gunships and two Navy F-18 Hornets. Red Dog 41 and Red Dog 42 (the Cobras) went to work first, firing their 20mm canons at the rusting tank hulks on range 7. After several minutes of that, Joker 11 and Joker 12 checked on station, and one of our instructors started to talk him onto target. That took a while. Their first bomb, a laser guided Mk76 (inert practice bomb) hit the target. After that, the Navy didn't do so well. Their next two bombing runs produced no visible effects and the ground controller called to ask why. The bombs were "hung and locked." Apparently, some ordnance guy at the Navy base the F-18s came from neglected to unlock the bombs before take off. Way to go Navy. The strafing runs were pretty fucking cool. They came in low, maybe 400 feet off the ground, and fired their 20mm gatling gun at the tanks. The F-18's gun has a much higher rate of fire, about 6,000 rounds per minute. It sounds more like a growl than a gun when fired. They made several gun runs then a high speed pass over our position. Cool shit.
The rest of the day was calling for fire, we had 105mm canons firing for us. It is pretty damn cool to pick up the radio and have someone from a position several miles away rain high explosive steel onto a target you pick. Big power trip.
The week was a test to say the least. Last Sunday I talked with my parents about the week coming up and the hellacious weather that we were facing and we had a pretty good chat about existing with the elements, not fighting them. There were several times that I was thinking about how much I hated the weather, how miserable I was, how much I wanted to be somewhere else. I could feel myself going internal. Shifting my thoughts to what I had to do, instead of my aching hands or numb feet, allowed me to regain focus. I have had some trying field exercises, but never so miserable. The company commander was very close to calling it off, the weather was that bad. The Marine Corps doesn't call off training very often, there has to be danger of serious injury or death for us to call an exercise off. All of our instructors told us that we had recieved a serious kick in the gut and had come through well. I believe them this time.
// posted by Josh @ 3/06/2005 07:15:00 PM 
