Week 3 (Apr 19-25): IEDs, HMMWVs, and CLS

Week 3 (Apr 19-25): After an uneventful Sunday of eating, running, and lifting, we began week 3 with the improvised explosive devices (IED) course. This was a sobering one day course where they showed all the latest technologies that the enemy are currently using against us. They also demonstrated some of the electronic, mechanical, and thermal countermeasures that NATO forces were employing to defeat these threats. Thank goodness many of these countermeasures are very effective against most of these IEDs. God bless the EOD units who continue to risk their lives to keep us safe.



The first picture above is an example of one of the countermeasure devices that are currently employed by NATO forces. It’s called the crusader and is built into the new HMMWVs. It includes the antenna on the far right, the actual box on the left which is located in the trunk and remote which is located within the cabin. The actual device is not classified only the frequencies that it jams.



The practical exercise from the IED course included locating the IEDs in the simulated Afghan town. Can you locate where the IED is in the picture above? Find it? It’s actually the flat rock on the bottom right of the picture. There was a small pressure plate that the instructors placed there to get us when we stepped on that rock. Fortunately none of us stepped on it, but sadly, none of us were able to locate it either. The said the best way to find these IEDs is to notice what doesn’t belong there. They said if it had rained and it was muddy, someone for sure would have stepped on it, to keep their boots from getting muddy. Sometimes I guess it’s better to be lucky than good…


On Tuesday and Wednesday, we took the HMMWV driver’s course. With this course we all became qualified to drive the HMMWVs day and night (with and without NVGs. The driver’s training also included how to tow the trucks using the hasty and the regular method. The hasty tow is used under fire where you just run out there and quickly attach a thick rope to the disabled vehicle to get it out of the kill zone, see the yellow rope on the hood in front of the driver’s side hood? The regular tow is when you have more time and can attach a stiff metal towbar from one vehicle to the disabled vehicle.



One of the trainers we had to pass was the HMMWV rollover egress machine. It’s similar to the helodunk from flight school., we were completely flipped over 180 degrees and told to egress with our complete body armor on and our M4 rifle. It’s really quite tricky. Apparently, with all of the new armor that these HMMWVs got it made them very top heavy and susceptible to rollovers. The Army found that by using this trainer that they noticed a decrease in the number of deaths from these rollover accidents.



This video is an example of the rollover egress machine in action. The critical angle for the trainer is 28 degrees. At this angle, we were taught to yell ‘roll over’ so that the other passengers and especially the gunner will know to get down into the cabin and brace themselves.



Here’s a picture of me in the gunner’s turret in the brand new uparmored HMMWVs, the M1151 model. These vehicles were brand new even with the new car smell. At of these vehicles were over 6,000 pounds, 6.0L turbocharged engines. Because of the weight these ‘trucks’ they accelerated very slowly but had tons of torque and once you got them moving they could really move.



For the course and anytime we drove the HMMWVs we had to have our complete body armor on for safety. As you see, this armor is very bulky and difficult to move around in. There are four ceramic plates (front, back, and two sides) that are designed to stop the larger 7.62mm round. This armor with everything attached weighs over 40 pounds. One of the things we found out throughout our time in Ft. Riley was that we had to continue to adjust the body armor to make it more and more comfortable. In this picture here, you can see my arms to not come down completely and I ended up adjusting my side plates down an inch allow my arms to rest more comfortably.

The other two guys in the picture are DJ Becker and Mike Feightner. All of us are from San Diego. DJ is an anesthesiologist and Mike is a radiologist at NMCSD. DJ grew up in Montana. Mike is from Chicago and played some pretty high level rugby at Penn State and for the Super League team Chicago Lions.



The last three days we completed the Combat Lifesavers Course. This is a course that the army has all their soldiers take. Its goal is to reduce number of preventable deaths. They found that if the common soldier is able to treat the four main preventable injuries it would reduce the number of deaths. These four skills are applying pressure to stop bleeding, treating a tension pneumothorax, using an occlusive dressing to stop a sucking chest wound, and applying a tourniquet. In the above photo they demonstrate how to transport a patient with just a blanket and two poles.