Thursday, April 21, 2005
WFEX II Part II
So now that we were in our TAOR (Tactical Area of Responsibility), the fun ended. The rain continued to drizzle on us, like chinese water torture, it works at your mind. You do your best to stay dry, your Gore-Tex jacket and pants will keep you dry for a while, but they are not impermeable. Drops of rain run off your helmet and down your neck, sending a chill through your body. We moved through the woods in a column, reminiscent of so many
As you dig deeper, the rain falling on you becomes water in the hole. Every strike at the dirt sends a shower of water and mud into your face and onto your body. It wouldn't seem to matter at this point; you are already soaked, right? You would think so, but when life sucks that bad every new insult makes it worse. My fighting hole buddy and I just started laughing, it was all we could do.
While in the defense that night, we just shivered constantly. We never did get the hole deeper than stomach level so when I and my 6'2" 200lb fighting hole buddy tried to slouch into the bottom of the hole and sleep at the same time, it got pretty cramped. I've said many times that I can sleep anywhere, but this was the exception. I was crushed into a little ball and the sides of the hole were pushing in on my sides and hips with the entire weight of my body. I just couldn't take it. It was better to freeze than to suffer through that pain for an hour. The temp dropped to the low 40s and we were all suffering. We had to treat one marine who succumbed to hypothermia. He was babbling incoherent nonsense and didn't know where he was. He was fine though, he rejoined us the next day.
We got up the next morning, strapped on our packs and humped out of there. Or maybe I should say we clawed our way out of our muddy pits, shoved our gritty nasty gear into our now brown, mud caked packs and slogged a couple hundred meters to a new assembly area. We started this process before the sun was even up, so visually determining what was your gear and what was a clump of mud was pretty difficult. I wound up burying my soft cover while filling in the hole because of this. One day, a lieutenant is going to be digging his fighting position and find a cover with the name Greer stenciled inside it! Maybe I'll be comandant by then and it'll make the papers. Wish I had written down the grid coordinates of that position so I could verify it later.
The second day of WFEX II was spent doing platoon sized attacks. The instructors would call someone's name out, brief them on the plan, and they would take over. This involves a lot of down time for the rest of us not directly involved in the planning and reconnaisance process. It takes between two and three hours to develop a plan, do a recon patrol, then write and deliver an order before you get everybody together to issue the order and step off. This down time can be real torture to someone who is action oriented, who wants to be doing, not waiting.
I was involved in one recon patrol as the navigator, which seemed to be a recurring theme. Once your platoon knows you are good at land navigation, you are asked to be navigator all the time. Thankfully, I was not asked to be navigator for the night attack. Our recon patrol on that one got some bum intel and got pretty lost. That's the biggest fear as a navigator; getting lost.
After completing the night attack, we joined the rest of the company in the LZ and formed up for the eight mile march back to the barracks. Because we started our attack late, we were the last ones to get to the LZ and we had very little time to strip off our warming layers, fill canteens, dump our ammo, and for me to get briefed and brief the platoon on the march.
I was the garrison platoon commander for that week, so once the tactical commander was done with the night attack, it was my job to get the platoon ready to step off on the march. Keep in mind, these are some tired lieutenants, they would rather just lay back on their packs and pass out for a few days and I can't say I blame them. Captain Sullinvan once told me that when you are in command you don't feel all of the pain and you don't feel as tired as joe rifleman. He is right. I didn't feel pain, didn't feel tired, it was almost superhuman. You really don't have time to be tired so your body kicks in the extra bit of reserve energy you need. I was able to get all my gear ready, get a brief from the company commander and brief my platoon staff on the scheme of maneuver before some in the platoon had halfway finished getting their own gear ready.
This became an issue halfway through the hike when my SPC saw several people stipping off warming layers and heard that most didn't have full canteens. It was my responsibility to ensure that these things had been done, but because I couldn't inspect every single person I had to rely on my fire team leaders and squad leaders to ensure things got done. Yet another lesson in how officers are responsible for everything their unit does, but are not necessarily able to directly affect every single issue. I took my ass ripping and relayed it directly down the line to my platoon sergeant and squad leaders.
A little later I got a good ass chewing from the student company commander because my platoon was the one in the lead and in that position it is our job to provide road guards. Road guards run ahead of the march formation to road intersections wearing orange reflective vests and at night carrying white lens flashlighs in order to stop motorists as we pass through. We are wearing camoflauge after all. We were equipped to provide eight road guards, which is what I was briefed we would need but we ran through those eight very quickly. Half of them didn't have the right flashlights anyway because we hadn't packed them before we left. You never use white lens flashlights in the field so we didn't bother to pack them. It's amazing the small things you have to deal with as a commander.
I realized that I had run out of road guards and was yelling for my squad leaders to bring up more because we were quickly approaching an entrance to the FBI academy. The worst possible thing happened. I finally got someone to run up to the head of the column just as a car came screaming out of the academy at high speed. Our company commander, Major Foley, was at the head of the column and he ordered us to stay clear of the speeding car. It turned on flashing blue lights and sped out in front of the column. Shortly after the car passed, the student company commander got in my face and yelled something to the effect of "Don't ever let that happen again." Lt. Taylor and I are friends from OCS so I didn't take it personally, I was more emberrassed at myself and angry at my squad leaders for disobeying my orders. I wonder though, if we had gotten a road guard out there in time to stop the cop car, would he have stopped? It would have likely taken 4 to 5 minutes for the column to pass, he can't really afford that kind of time when heading to an emergency.
The hike was actually the most brutal one we had during the 6 months here. Because we had no down time before stepping off on the hike, we were already tired, and our wet, mud caked packs weighed several pounds more than normal. Throw in some waterlogged feet which are more prone to blisters, and you have a tough hike. Once again though, being in command allowed me to push through the pain and fatigue. We didn't finish the hike until 2 o'clock in the morning and I was exhausted, but I kept moving because the platoon was depending on me. My company commander (student) commented during my evaluation later that he was really impressed with how I was able to keep doing my job while many of the other platoon commanders collapsed on their butts and did nothing. Felt good to be recognized, but I honestly didn't see any other alternative. Things had to get done and I was the only guy who was going to get them done.
// posted by Josh @ 4/21/2005 01:12:00 PM 
