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.

Week 2 (Apr 13-20): Camp Funston

The second week at Ft. Riley we moved from Custer Hill to Camp Funston where we will complete remainder of our training. Camp Funston is another training area within Ft. Riley that is setup like a forward operating base (FOB). When we arrived we found out that we would be staying in 40-man open bay barracks. I was slightly disappointed, as most of my other 39 roommates were junior enlisted 20-year-olds who enjoyed loud music, staying up late, and drinking. So much for some quiet reflection time. :) The accommodations were sparse, basically a twin size bed and small closet to lock our clothes. Here I am with LCDR DJ Becker, he's one of the anesthesiologists from Naval Medical Center San Diego. He's also got a very nice blog, that's got a great number of pictures and movies. http://danieljmt.blogspot.com/2009_04_12_archive.html

Once we got settled in, the rest of the week they attempted to teach us Dari, one of the two main languages in Afghanistan. The other language is Pashtun which is mostly spoken in the south. However, most medical and official business is conducted in Dari. They started the first hour of each day this week with Dari lessons. Some of the key phrases we learned were hello (salaam), how are you (chetor asti), and thank you (tashakor). The language is very difficult with many sounds we don't us in the English language. Fortunately, each of us will have an interpreter assigned to us during our deployment.

After our first hour of Dari language class and the remaining seven hours each day we had counter-insurgency class (COIN). COIN was actually a great class to give us a better appreciation of what the NATO mission is in Afghanistan. Essentially COIN taught us that our job is to train the Afghan soldiers, policemen, medics, and doctors. We did a lot of case studies on how in the past we had not been effective in winning the 'hearts and minds' of the civilians (i.e. Honduras, Vietnam, etc...). If I could sum it up, essentially, don't kill civilians and make sure we put a 'Afghan face' on anything we do over there. Giving them things or doing things for them does not necessarily do them any good. They need to learn to make mistakes and learn how to fix things themselves. From what I understand the Afghan National Army (ANA) is already progressing well, but the Afghan National Police (ANP) still has some work to do, since we didn't start mentoring and embedding with them until the last couple of years.

On Wednesday evening of this week the training included a leader engagement meeting. During our eight weeks here, we will have eight of these leader engagements, where we will learn the cultural dos and don'ts when interacting with the Afghans. For example, dos include: always ask about the family, drink lots of chai (Afghan word for tea), make sure you socialize with them. Don'ts include: don't shake or eat with the left hand, never show the soles of your feet at them, don't ask about their daughters or wives, and don't rush conversations into business. However, the most important thing these leader engagements do is allow us to practice using interpreters.

On Thursday the Afghan instructors made a delicious cultural dinner for us, so that we'd have an opportunity to try the tastes and flavors once before we head over there. The food was rice and chicken seasoned with many spices. I thought it tasted like a mix of Indian and Ethiopian food. The food was eaten with our hands (the right hand of course). This is one of our cultural advisers. Many of these cultural advisers we have training us also work as interpreters in Afghanistan.

This was a very nice week, but the 8+ hours of classes each day really became tedious and we were looking forward to getting out into the field next week.

Week 1 (Apr 4-12): Welcome to Fort Riley

On Saturday, April 4th we departed on buses from NB San Diego to NAS Coronado, where we boarded a Marine DC-9 for Manhattan, Kansas (Ft. Riley, Kansas). As you can see Thuy was there to see me off. This is picture of me right before I stepped onto the flight from NAS Coronado.

Although, I've had almost five months notice for this deployment, I think it finally hit me the moment I stepped into the tail of the DC-9 that I was deploying. It was both a moment of excitment and nervousness at the same time.

Once we arrived in Ft. Riley, we were bused to our temporary barracks on Custer Hill. We'd only be staying for one week here. Basically long enough for the Army to issue us the rest of our gear. We arrived from NMPS with one seabag of uniforms and boots. After this week was completed we'd have another three seabags of gear to include: more boots, more ACUs (Army Combat Uniform) both flame retardant and regular, IBA (individual body armor), cold weather gear, M4 rifle, and M9 handgun.

The big red one is also known as the 1st Infantry Division. This is the unit that has been assigned to train us at Ft. Riley and get us ready for deployment. Our team SGA (small group advisor) is SSGT Walters. We'll be working with us as our liasion. The Navy liasion officers are CDR Troup and HMCS Osoroz.

Week 0 (Mar 30-Apr 4): NMPS

I'm going to call checking in at NMPS (Navy Mobilization and Processing Site) week zero. While most people had to fly from other commands and stay in the BOQ, I was fortunate to live only 2 miles away and be able to continue to stay at home with Thuy the entire week. We were able to visit some of our favorites restaurants like O-Nami and 99 a couple more times.

NMPS is a command originally designed to process reservist as they become activated for active duty, but this mission evolved to processing active duty too as more IAs (individual augmentee) were asked to join the fight. At NMPS, they mostly made sure our medical records were up to date, shots complete, our pay was setup, and all of our computerized training done. The days were mostly half days, with time to be spent at home with Thuy.

Here's a picture of me being fitted for a gas mask during this week.

This other picture is of Thuy and me hiking up to Cowles Mountain the highest point in San Diego City. We love this place and visit often as this was the place where I proposed.

Memorial Day

I think it's fitting that the first blog entry should be posted the day after Memorial Day. It is important to remember all of those who have given the ultimate sacrifice so that we may live the 'American dream' and enjoy our daily freedoms.

What I hope to accomplish with this blog is to create a place to share my journey to Afghanistan with my family and close personal friends. Unfortunately, I'll be starting this about 6 weeks into my training at Fort Riley, Kansas, so what I'll do in the next couple of days is to give weekly summaries from the very beginning. I hope you will enjoy this blog as much as I will have writing it. Thanks again to my family and friends for supporting me.