The Low Crawl and Other "Warrior Skills"

Tuesday was a really fun day.  We started with a very short "ruck march" (a/k/a/ hike with gear) through the woods to a training area on post.  We then spent the rest of the day in small groups, rotating through 8 different "warrior skills" training stations, all run by our peers with prior military experience.  The mission of the day was just to give us a taste of these skills.  Nobody was expected to become an expert in combat lifesaving or land navigation after a 50-minute field training exercise ("FTX").   We will have plenty of time to become proficient in these critical skills during our six week Direct Commissioned Officer Course ("DCC") at Ft. Benning this fall.

My first station was "React to Indirect Fire" station.  You've all seen this in the movies.  Essentially, there are soldiers on the ground and one of them hears a high-pitched whistling sound overhead.  He yells "INCOMING" and everyone drops to the ground on their bellies, waits for the sh*t to hit the fan, and then waits for the leader to tell them what to do, depending on where the artillery landed.  Too easy.

Our second station was the real fun one:  "Individual Movement Techniques".  This is basic infantryman stuff - essentially, how to move in order to minimize the risk of getting shot in the arse.  We all got fake weapons (as luck would have it, I got the M16 - the biggest, heaviest, most awkward weapon there was).  First we tried  clearing a building.  Now I've seen this on TV, but I never really appreciated how scary it was.  I was breathing heavy even though the guns were fake and the "bad guys" inside the building were just cadre.  Then we learned the "low crawl".   That's where you lay flat on the ground on your belly, with your face turned to the side so your cheek is in the dirt, and you use your knees & elbows to drag yourself forward along the ground.  If you lift your cheek or arse out of the dirt even an inch, the cadre yells "bang you're dead".  (Oh and did I mention that it rained a few inches the night before and we were doing this in an open field under powerlines??)  After 30 yards of that, I was spitting out rocks and grass, and had a really cool mud smear on my right cheek.  Then it was the "high crawl", which is essentially the same, except that you cradle your weapon in your arms as if you were carrying firewood and use your elbows to help you move forward.  Then we moved on to covering each other while trying to advance forward under direct fire.  So, we laid down on our bellies in a high crawl position, but with our weapons at the ready.  Then the rear guy had to shout "buddy I'm moving", to which his buddy would respond "buddy I've got you covered", the rear guy would then jump up, yell "I'm up", sprint forward past his buddy, and yell "they see me, I'm down" and fall straight down to the ground, breaking his fall with the butt of his weapon and resume the ready-to-kill-bad-guys position and yell "all set".  Then the other partner would do the same.  We did this for about 10 repetitions each, and all ended up with really bruised knees.  After only an hour of running these movements in 98-degree heat, I was exhausted.  I cannot imagine being an infantry guy doing this all day, in 120-degree heat, wearing full body armor, and, oh by the way, the guns are real and the bad guys are actually firing at you the whole time.  Whole new appreciation for what those guys go through every day.  Holy crap.

The next station was "Reacting to UXO" (Unexploded Ordnance, a/k/a/ IEDs).  That was interesting, but it was very much a classroom format.  Next up was "Performing Voice Communications" -- talking on a military radio.  There's a whole alphabet, numerous phrases that have to be used when transmitting on a radio frequency, and also a particular give-and-take and order to the conversation.  Interesting stuff.  We separated into two groups and practiced delivering messages.  Definitely useful stuff.

Then it was on to the Combat First Aid station.  "First Aid" seems to be a bit of an understatement - we're not talking about band-aids and splints here -- we got demonstrations on how to triage a chest wound and  collapsed lung;  gaping abdominal wounds (i.e., never put the organs that may have spilled out back into the body, just lay them on top); amputations; and severe burns.  Watching these demonstrations reinforced the gravity of the situation in which we may all find ourselves if we go downrange - we very likely could be the one who has to triage our buddy and save his life.  The other really interesting piece of this class was learning about the "Nine-Line Medevac" procedure.  If a convoy/unit comes under attack and there are casualties, somebody has to call the helicopters in to pick up the serious casualties.  There's a very specific code that all personnel must use when calling on the medevac frequency.  The report consists of nine-lines and all of the information must be delivered in 25 seconds or less.   The instructor told us that, in many cases, its actually the JAG who is actually responsible for calling in the medevac, so this is particularly important for us.  (Not because lawyers have any skill whatsoever in delivering brief and concise messages, but because the JAG is usually the one sitting in the comfy seat inside the MRAP when the sh*t hits the fan, so it frequently falls on the JAG to communicate with the medevac team while everyone else is dealing with the situation.)  Not your typical day at the lawyer office.  (Hey Mom - please focus on the "JAG sits in the comfy seat inside the MRAP", not the "gaping abdominal wounds" part, OK??)

Next was the exercise I had been waiting all day for:  Land Navigation.  Some of you know that I took this very seriously in my pre-Army preparations.   Doug did an awesome job of patiently teaching me the basics of land nav:  learning how to use the military grid map system, getting familiar with the lensatic compass, and learning terrain features both on a map and in the field.  So I was excited to test out whether everything I had learned had stuck with me.  But, it was only a 50 minute class, and most of the people in my group had never laid eyes on a grid map or held a compass.  So all we did was open the maps and find a grid square.  I guess I'll have to wait until we get to Benning to do some real land nav.

Finally, it was off to the Military Intelligence section.  We approached the student instructors at the treeline and were told that there were suspected hostiles in the woods, we needed to go in undetected and gather as much info about the situation as we could in 5 minutes, and report back to the cadre, using the radio communications we had learned earlier, and in the SALUTE format of reporting (Size, Activity, Location, Unit, Time, Equipment).   My buddy and I crawled in on our bellies, observed 5 cardboard cutouts:  two middle-eastern looking men, one with an AK-47, one with an RPG; seemingly holding hostage two women in burkas; and a small boy with an M4.  We noted all kinds of data about the patterns/colors on their headdresses, expressions, weapons, etc., and then called in the report.  Good stuff.

That was the end of our FTX for the day and we were all hot, exhausted and covered head-to-toe in dried mud and ticks.  At least we were able to go back to air conditioned hotel rooms and shower - a major luxury indeed!  This day reinforced two things for me:  (i) we really are in the Army, during a time of war, and we really need to master every single one of these tasks because we absolutely cannot be a liability when/if we go outside the wire; and (ii) I wouldn't want to be anywhere else at this point in my life but right here.