IED training lanes

This picture of Staff Sergeant Gil pretty much sums up how we felt at the end of our training today. This is after a long day of classroom and field work. We are all feeling that this is the 4th day of 9 days of training. I can't tell you all how happy I am that I am doing this in May and not July!

Today started at the usual 0530 wake up for the 0700 formation. Sometime during the night "They" who ever that is we may never know, changed the formation location. I showed up after eating my breakfast in the Dining Facility (DFAC) and no one was at our usual formation. Turns out they moved it to the motor pool area so we could ride on trucks out to the training area. Riding in the trucks is an experience all it's own. The roads here were once made from large chunks of white rocks. We always called them caliche rocks. Anyway these rocks are long gone from all of the years and wars of big Army trucks rolling through which now leaves a very fine almost baby powder. This powder gets into everything! you get out of the truck totally covered in a white powder. I noticed one hispanic Major who's mustache is normally jet black looked white!

After our numerous truck rides we finally ended up in the improvised explosive device (IED) training classes. 5 long hours spent in powerpoint training looking at IED slides and gruesome pictures of what can happen to you if you are not vigilant. The truth is what I learned in Iraq. The only way to defeat IEDs is to not be where they are. If you build patterns you will get hit. If you go the same way on the same day at the same time you will get hit. The bad guys watch what you do. They watch what gate you use and what route you use. The only way to avoid it is to use your crew device (electronic jammers) to keep them from setting off the bombs by remote means such as car key fobs, cell phones or even toy care remote controllers and by changing your routes constantly. When planning convoy routes in Iraq in 2005 I would purposely route us right through the insurgent neighborhoods. The places we weren't supposed to go. Who plants a bomb in front of their own house? Not them! they want to kill Americans and possibly innocent civilians in someone Else's neighborhood not their own.

Back to the training.....We finished our 5 hours of classroom then climbed back on the caliche dusters to go to the training areas. Once there we dismounted and spent about 4 hours walking around in the heat with all of our battle rattle looking at fake IED's planted in the ground, bushes and roadsides. Our job in the training is to find the instructor planted IED's before they simulate blowing us up. We did well because most of us are already combat vets and have done this work for real. The instructors try really hard but they are at a deficit because no matter how hard they try they can't make Camp Swift, Texas look like Iraq.