Training the Best

Two days in the field capped off with an eight mile hike sounds easy, right? If you think so, you don’t know TBS, and you don’t know Alpha Company.

Nothing is as easy as it sounds at TBS. There is always a catch which makes the easy difficult and the difficult soul crushingly hard. Not that I’m complaining, I would be disappointed if the training for officers of Marines was any less challenging. For the first time in my Marine Corps career, I feel challenged daily and feel like my training is really preparing me for the reality of my job.

WFEX II (FEX is short for Field Exercise, I still don’t know what the W is for.) is two days in the field centered on platoon sized offensive and defensive operations. This is what we are really training for here. We are training to command rifle platoons and up until this point we have trained in fire team and squad sized elements to learn the basics. It’s like going from the JV to the practice squad, to starting lineup. Moving an entire platoon of marines through the treeline is one of the most challenging and most awesome things I have ever experienced. When we sprang the attack on the last night and 24 M-16s, 9 M-203s, and 9 M-249 SAWs opened up, the amount of firepower we brought to the fight was awesome.

Now for the catch. Alpha Company has been cursed. Someone in this training company has really pissed off mother nature because every time we have to do something outside, she turns up the friction (Marine Corps term for anything that makes a task more difficult). I am not one to complain, I usually find the best in every situation, but it really seems like the weather turns for the worst every time we leave garrison. Rifle range was frozen windy misery, WFEX I was unbelievably cold and miserable, and we have had several physical training events postponed multiple times due to snow or rain. So it wasn’t really a shock to see that it was forecast to be rainy and cold for WFEX II. There is nothing worse for a field exercise than rain. Everything you own becomes caked in mud and grit. It spreads to everything you touch so eventually everything you possess is muddy and wet.

We started WFEX II with a helo insert and for a few minutes, I stopped dreading the two days ahead of me. I’ve said it before, but there is nothing more awesome than a military helicopter insert. We were loaded on CH-53s, a massive helicopter which can seat 54 people or up to 24 fully combat loaded marines. It can lift 16 tons. If that doesn’t impress you, just think about that for a second. To put it in context of my friend Kris’s first car, a 1976 Buick Regal, that’s 8 Buicks. Awesome.

So you wait at the edge of a landing zone, your gear on and ready to go. In the distance you hear the chop of the rotor blades. It’s not like the chop of the famous Huey from all those Vietnam movies, it’s faster because the CH-53E has 7 rotor blades to the Huey’s 2. Your heart starts to beat a little faster. You see the helo appear over the treeline, banking hard to make his turn into the LZ, you check your gear one last time and prepare to run. The pilot starts his flare and you brace yourself. As he nears the ground, the wind blast hits you; it drives rain and dirt into your body and your gear, almost knocking you off your feet. Everybody has to yell to be heard, it’s almost time to go. The ramp comes down, the crew chief gives the signal to go and you take off running. Your stick of 24 takes off in a line, racing across the LZ with more than 100 lbs of gear each. As you get closer, the noise of the rotor blades becomes louder and louder, to the point that you couldn’t hear someone if they were yelling directly into your ear. The heat of the exhaust washes over you and the wind rips at your gear, the helicopter gets bigger and bigger until it becomes the only thing in your world at that point. Everything you are doing is focused on getting on the chopper and getting the hell out of dodge.

Once on the chopper, the rotor noise is replaced by a high pitched whine from the transmission which is directly over your head. For that reason, everyone turns their weapons down, muzzles pointed to the ground. If someone was to have a negligent discharge, much better for the bullet to go through the floor than through an engine or the transmission. The ride on a 53 is relaxing to the point that you could fall asleep if you had time, but you usually don’t. You load your weapon, check your gear, and prepare to run again. If the pilot feels like playing with you, he banks hard for his turns, pushing you hard into the seats. It is still awesome to see a chopper that big sideways making a turn, it just doesn’t seem possible.

When you reach the target LZ, the pilot flares hard again, you feel yourself pushed hard into the seats and through the windows you see the horizon tilt on a 45 degree angle. The ramp hits the ground and you are off running once again. You have to turn left off a 53 because the tail rotor is to the right, and turning right might make you a few inches shorter. You run to the edge of the treeline, throw your pack down, and drop into the prone behind it, rifle pointed out. One more rush of wind, another bath of rain and dirt, and the helo is gone. The silence of an LZ after a helo insert is eerie. You pick up your pack, get in formation, and silently you are off into the woods.