marty's Blog

April 21

ok I am in camp adder/Ali air base until atleast Monday. It still has not been determined where I will go from here but two possibilities have been discussed, stay here or go to Basrah. One cool thing about here is I can see the third oldest structure in the world, its like a pyramid in front of the city that Abraham was born in. Food is awsome here also so who knows about the diet thing. lol. I have added some pictures also but still have lots to add to my other web site but just can’t find the time and the internet conections are so slow here so it takes forever.

I started a renumber system again, now the day represents the number of days in country.
I have pictures to go with this but will have to add them later.

Well I am currently in Kuwait at a place called Ali Al Saleem air base. I was thrilled to see internet access here however I am only here for two days. We fly out to Iraq tomorrow sometime. We left Indianapolis at 3pm on the 17th; we flew north over Lake Huron and Quebec Canada, Greenland and landed in Shannon Ireland for 1 hour to fuel. Seven hours in the plane at this point. We then flew for 3 hours over Germany, Finland and landed in Budapest Hungary for fuel. We then flew for another four hours to Kuwait City. We had two different units on the plane when we landed in Kuwait and for some reason the KBR security thought we were going to the same base, we were not. So we ended up going for a 2 hour convoy to the base of the other unit so we could drop off there gear, reload our gear on the trucks and head for our staging base. At this point it is 1:30 am and have been up for almost 36 hours with only two hours of sleep on the plane and one hour of sleep on the bus ride to camp Buehring. I don’t know how I fell asleep on the bus; we had security and some crazy bus driver, almost in two accidents lol.

When we landed in Kuwait it was 90 degrees out but didn’t really feel hot, and last night was just perfect temp with a small breeze. I finally got to bed last night a 3:30 am and woke up at 7 this morning but don’t seem tired for some reason. We have nothing to do until 5pm today so internet for me most of the day. Today I should be able to upload a punch of pictures to my website and also update myspace. We are scheduled to fly out of here to our respective places in Iraq tomorrow some time, still unsure were I will be.

They had steak and lobster for supper at Camp Buehring last night, how cool is that?

April 16

This will be the last entry untill i reach my final destonation as all comunications will soon shut down for security. Today was nothing but pack gear and get mentaly ready. yeah like that is possible. i will try to embed a video that one of our guys made with his pictures.

April 15

Today is an easy one as we have the day off other than a meeting at 1pm for an hour and then the company party tonight at 5pm. So we have been sleeping in and taking it easy. Tonight we will start the final packing for the move to Kuwait. I have some pics to post now so you can check then out if you want. Oh and the sun is finaly out with no rain but the wind is blowing so still cold here, go figure.

April 14

ok, we just got out of the field and of course it’s raining and has for three of the five days in the field. Go figure. Lets see I think day 8 is where I left off.
Day 15 was a 5 oclock wake up and started the day off with our second anthrax shot. We then had a written test for combat lifesaver certification and had to run through two full blown senarios. by 3pm we were combat lifesaver qualified. We then proceded over to vehicle rollover training as many soldiers are killed when their humvee rolls over, expecially the gunner sticking up out the roof of the vehicle. After the evening meal we had weigh in of our selves and gear as we are only allowed 4oo lbs per soldier on the plane to Kuwait. Squad meeting was at 6pm and then preped for the next days training. The sun actually came out today and was 45 degrees.
Day 16 was a 5 am wake up and after chow we loaded gear and moved to the FOB for five days off training in the field. by 8 AM we were already on our first mission of defending the base. this was a live fire exercise in which I was incharge of as well as for the rest of the day untill leadership change time. the live fire went well, no one was shot and the OC’s (observer controlers) the ones who evalutate us gave us a go in all areas except the medical casualty. all went well in that area as far as reports, litter team retreaving the victom and so on untill my combat life saver was to nervous to make a good IV stick in the wounded soldiers arm. He missed the vein on the first arm and then on the second try of the other arm he acidently pulled the cathider out of the vein while given saline solution. the wounded soldier had one big bubble in his arm for awhile. its way easier to perform first aid in a class room than it is when you only have seconds to treat the casualty before he dies and live rounds are being fired around you. By 6pm we began prep for the next days mission of ground assault convoy and then attended a briefing on suicide in the combat zone. This first day in the field went fast.
Day 17, wake up was at 5am and it had already rained all night long and is 40 degrees. We started the morning with prep and rehersals for the ground assault convoy training. Loaded humvee’s and got the commo up and running with both primary and secondary commo radios. We headed out of the wire to the convoy lanes training with several senarios of different vehicles in the convoy getting hit with IED’s and small arms fire as well as the key leadership in the convoy being wounded or killed. This took us to evening chow and of course late into the night we planed and preped for the next days mission. It rained hard this whole day as well as hailed on us for 15 minutes and then continued to rain. two tornado warnings were given and they touched down about twenty miles to the north east of our position so no problen there for us. forcast is for rain the rest of the time in the field also.
Day 18 was a 5am wake up and following morning chow we started with convoy lanes training again only the intensity was now going to be steped up. We went through two convoy lanes today each being about 10 miles long. Our first mission was to recon a route looking for IED’s and to stop at a villiage to talk to the local shiek to gain intell on insurgents. We encountered numerous attacks and then finaly made it to the village where there were about 30 real iraqi’s surounding our vehicles as we stoped in town. it was actually real weird to be surrounded by them while the convoy commander and the interpriter and security talked to the shiek. they even tried getting into our humvee’s. the 9 mm pistal detered that. Someone in the convoy spotted a bomb on one of the iraqi’s and we gave the signal to load the commander and hauled ass out of town we didn’t loose any vehicles but had two wounded in the proccess. Yep another IV stick, thank god I was the driver and not the combat live saver giving the needle or whorse the casualty getting stuck with a needle. By 8 pm we were done for the day and it’s still raining.
Day 19 we woke up at 5:30 and was tested on convoy opperations today with one mission to go to Balad and pick up 9 mm pistals and deliver them to the police chief in Baghdad. We learned our lesson yesterday and this time when entering Baghdad with all the iraqi’s we created a box formation with the vehicles on the edge of town so nobody could get to us inside the area created by the vehicles, and with keen scanning of the area we spotted and IED right away so sounded the alarm loaded and blew through and out of town in under 60 seconds. This total pissed off the evaluaters as we out smarted them. they had all kinds of attacked set up for us that just didnt work. This ended by mid afternoon and we then spent a couple hours cleaning weapons and then met with the 1st army sergeant major and then prepared and preped for tomorrows mission. It has quit raining now and at 7pm we took a unit picture to be sent home to the family support group.
Day 20 was a 5am wake up with chow to follow. It was an easy day as we only had clean up of the field area execpt for the ten saw ( squad automatic weapon, machine gun) gunners as they had to go to a live fire exercise of fireing from a moving humvee. the rest of us packed and cleaned and then moved into the contonment area. Finaly a warm shower and fresh clothes. We have the rest of today to complete some online training and personal things. Three days and we will be on the plane to Kuwait.

April 08

to day we had the morning off because it is easter, we had first formation at 11:45. it was great to sleep in untill 8AM as we needed the rest. we ate an MRE (meal ready to eat) thats the militarys meal in a bag for noon meal but the cooks made duck for supper. i had the pork though as i don’t realy like duck. we started or second day of combat lifesaver course today and it was intravenous infusion day. not my best day as i am scared of needles. my partner had to stick me twice as he missed the vein the first time, i was turning all shades of pale. I on the other hand actually got it on the first try and made it through with everything all the way to the saline bag. so bottom line i lived through the day better than expected, expecialy when my fellow soldiers were taking bets i would pass out. training ended at 8 PM tonight. we also trained on litters tonight and had a big review for the final writen exam tomorrow. we allso have a bunch of senerio practical exercises tomorrow. it’s still cold as hell here. come on 8 days without seeing the sun.

April 07

Ok, I finally got some time to update the site on what I have been doing; we have basically no personal time anymore. Last night was the first time in many days. Tonight we may finish at 8 PM so I should get on the computer again. Or at least I hope.

2 Apr wake up was at 4:30 AM, loaded truck with gear for the three day field exercise. 5:15 was chow and by 6:30 we were combat marching into the FOB (forward operating base). Classes started with call for fire, air support, personnel search, car search which they had real Iraqi’s there for the training. From that we moved into head, chest, and abdomen and bleeding combat first aid. Next was radio communications and finished around 9PM with prep for the next days convoy and IED training. Of course it was cold windy and raining the whole time.

3 Apr wake up was at 6AM, training started with Iraq culture, coordinate with coalition and Iraq forces, tactical questioning, protect classified information. Arabic language which was taught by the Iraqi people, dealing with the media, utilizes an interpreter, negotiations with Iraqi people, cordon and search, urban operations, and MOUT training. MOUT is military operations urban terrain. Basically fighting in the cities. A storm came through this day with heavy and I mean heavy rain, wind at about 40 miles an hour, lightning, thunder and a tornado warning. We ended up in an old ammo bunker for one hour waiting out the tornado warning. This was the second day of freezing our butts off.

Training continued into the night of course with field dressings, tourniquets, and hand signals, combat casualty care under fire and cold injuries, it was still raining by the way. The last class of individual preventive medicine was at 9PM. Now the rain has stopped but wind still blowing at 40 mph.

4 Apr wake up was at 5:30 and it is 30 degrees out. Started with a 30 minute road march to the IED lane training site. We started with unexploded ordinance and IED training. We spent all day training on that and in convoys reacting to both in many different scenarios. I was the gunner on top of the humvee and the driver while coming out of a traffic control point scenario dropped the front right tire off the edge of an old bridge. The humvee came to a dead stop and through me up against the turret on the humvee, pain was instant. Not realizing it at the time the humvee was about to tip over into the drink as I exited the vehicle it started to tip over so had to slowly put my weight back on the vehicle until we could hook it up to another vehicle. We recovered the vehicle no damage was done and I was fine, only a lot of pain with minor cuts. I think I should get a purple heart. (not really). We then continued into the night with radio and first aid testing on what we learned earlier. We then went into night training with convoys and IED’s. Still cold and windy so we continued to freeze. We then moved back into the cantonment area as the field training was now over. We got back to the barracks at about 10 PM. It was at that time that we unloaded gear unpacked and repacked for the next days training. We are all pretty much frozen stiff zombies by now but are thankful for the warm barracks and a shower.

5 Apr was 6AM wake up, thank god we got to sleep in. We started land navigation at 7 in the cold and wind; however they did have wood burning in two barrels for us to warm up around. Land navigation consisted of both conventional map and compass where we had to determine azimuth and distance and then head into the woods to find three points. We had to get two out of three to pass. The second portion we used military GPS system to find points on the ground. After the land navigation we had three more classes by a military lawyer. They are laws of war, military justice and rules of engagement. We finished at 5PM and went to chow. We were off the rest of the night for once. However by time we got ready for the next day and cleaned up it was 8 PM, so about three hours to check emails.

6 Apr 06 AM wake up. We started hand to hand combat at 7 AM this morning. That was a lot of fun but very painful, however we did learn a lot of submission and kill moves. This training took us until the noon meal. At 1PM we started NBC training, gas mask, chemical suit and decontamination. The evening consisted of a briefing on equal opportunity and sexual harassment. 7:30 PM and we are done for the night. Of course this means we still have a meeting and need to prep gear for tomorrows training.

7 Apr 5 AM wake up. Still cold and windy, I am running around with a sunburned nose from last week and freezing to death. We had breakfast and started CLS (combat life saver) training today. Classes included control bleeding, splinting wounds, tourniquets, needle chest decompression, NPA which is shoving a tube down the nose to open an airway so a soldier can breathe, evaluate a casualty, field medical card which is the paper work end of treating a soldier, and finally requesting medical evacuation. This took us until supper and then at 6 PM we started the accident avoidance class which ended at 8:15 PM. Tomorrow is Easter Sunday therefore we are off in the morning, first formation is at 11:45. This will be a nice break from the grueling hours we have been putting in. We just found out tonight that we will now be leaving on the 17th instead of the 16th for Kuwait. This is a welcome bit of news as this will give us a day to get laundry and last minute things done as well as a day of rest so we don’t fly into a combat zone exhausted.

March 29

Today started at 4 AM wakeup and at morning chow by five. At 6 AM we were taken to a room for a piss test to insure we have no illegal substances in our body. By 8 AM we started the non lethal training in full battle gear, let me tell you 60 lbs of armor and gear took its toll on me by 7 PM tonight. The training consisted of the following; military paint ball guns, one which we use at home for our paint ball wars in the summer and the other a military version which will kill if you hit the target in the head or chest. Station two was the tazzer gun. This bad boy will ruin your day. We could no longer shoot at each other due to a pending incident in which a soldier was killed. But I did fire it into a fake target which let you see how the electric current flows through a body. Third station was hand to hand combat using the aggressor’s movements to your advantage. At one point during a demonstration I was totally at the mercy of a female instructor that was about five feet tall and weighed 120 lbs. (the shit works). Forth station was baton training to include defense and offence as well as restraining victoms’ once on the ground. Fifth station was a class on arresting and detaining the bad guys. Sixth station was crowd and riot training with full body protection and the clear shield like you would see in the news when the police are squaring off with an unruly crowd. This was a lot of fun but very intense as it all happens to fast with so many teams and formations to direct. Along with that you must try to control the situation without letting it escalate and decide when to use lethal or non lethal force.

After the non lethal training we had Arabic language training until supper. This is computer based and very painful. After trying to understand and learn Arabic In my opinion it is no wonder they are a third world country.

After chow was squad meeting and packed and prepared gear for tomorrows training. We also were issued a 9 mm pistol for our secondary weapon. We now have both weapons in our possession until we return from Iraq. This is a pain in the but as they must be with us at all times. Only exception is to have a battle buddy secure your weapon while in the shower and this type of thing and then switch out. You do not want to know what could happen If a military weapon becomes unaccounted for.

Tomorrow we have a 5:30 AM wake up and start our weapons training with the m4 rifle, 9 mm pistol, m240 machine gun and m249b machine gun. We have to qualify with the m4 and 9mm to include night fire and NBC fire (NBC) means qualifying with the gas mask on. So tomorrow will be about a 20 hour day in full battle gear again.

March 28

Today started out at 06:00 AM, went to chow and then to a senior NCO meeting with the Post Command Sergeant Major. The afternoon consisted of Personnel Recovery training, that is what to do when you become separated, captured and how to evade and escape. We had classroom instruction, briefings and online computer training. This took us to evening chow. At 6 PM we started what ended up being three hours of secret counter insurgent training, so obviously that is all I can say about that class. We finished the training at 9 PM tonight and returned to the barracks to pack all the gear we will need for tomorrows non lethal training. Full battle gear will be worn tomorrow; you’re talking about sixty pounds on our backs. Safety was stressed as to not have any broken bones tomorrow; this should prove to be a one fun day providing we don’t die from exhaustion and heat stroke lol. Oh and we found out tonight that we are now scheduled to leave camp atterburry for Kuwait on 16 Aprill. They moved the date up on us again. We will be the first unit to ever proccess through this mob station in its history. they are pretty impresed with us and how well trained we already are. This is good in two ways, one is that it shortened our six day Forward Operating Base training from six days in the field to three. Secondly it will get us home faster, our time does not start untill we step on Iraq soil so the sooner we get there the sooner we get home.

But that is tomorrow and will be bloged tomorrow if I get a chance.

March 27

Yesterday consisted of briefings all morning, they were suppose to go into the afternoon but we sailed through it due to having most of the paper work that went with it done back in Bismarck. This afforded us the opportunity to do some MOUT training.

Today we started the actual SRP, so it was all medical, dental, finance, chaplain, shots, and about a million other stations consisting of paperwork at each one, If I ever sign my name again it will be to soon. lol. This afternoon we got fitted for four more sets of uniforms, they should be in in about two weeks. After the fitting it was off to the computer room for four hours of self paced training online concerning actions to take if captured. I completed the training in about one hour, which explains why I am on the internet in the late afternoon.It sounds like we may train untill about nine tonight on other languages. yeah.