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February 17, 2010

GUEST COLUMN: Machines help in preparing for combat

The Athens Review

Lake Charles, Louisiana — A little over a month has passed since I reported into the 3rd Battalion, 156th Infantry in Lake Charles, Louisiana.  The strangers I met that day seem like old friends now.  Living in close quarters for a month tends to make strangers into close friends rather quickly.  You better get to know the guy standing to your left and right.  Your life may just depend on him someday. 

There is camaraderie between soldiers that is difficult to explain unless you have been one.  Sure you have guys that don’t like each other.  So much that there is nothing left to do but slug it out to settle some petty difference or let out the tension.  But they know that the same guy they were fist fighting over the stupidest of reasons, will always have their back when it really counts.

The past couple of weeks here at Camp Shelby have clicked along at a pretty good pace.  The highlight of the past couple of weeks was rollover training.  Not the kind of rollover you teach your dog to do, but vehicle rollover. 

Imagine getting in your car, having someone flip it over seven or eight times, and then getting out of it while the car is upside down within a few seconds.  Now imagine doing it with 70 pounds of body armor and an M-4 rifle.  When you have mastered that, put four or five people in the car, and allow only one door to be opened, and everyone has to get out of that door while people are shooting at you.

Camp Shelby has perfect mock-ups of the type of military vehicles we will be operating out of in Iraq, mounted on what looks like an oversized barbeque spit, like some sick traveling parking lot carnival ride.  Everyone piles in, puts on their seatbelts and braces for the ride.  

Some of the vehicles like the MRAP (which stands for Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle) hold nine soldiers.  As I awaited my turn to take the MRAP rollover ride, I noticed that the operator of the “ride” would only roll the vehicle once or twice before stopping it upside down, and allowing everyone to get out.  Seemed like a piece of cake….wait for the rolling to stop, loosen the shoulder straps, undue the waist belt, drop upside down to the floor (formerly the ceiling) without jamming my neck, grab my rifle and get out of the door they have unlocked or the gunner’s hatch. 

But to my surprise, just as the eight soldiers I was with loaded into the MRAP and strapped in, another sergeant took over the controls.  I should have known by the look in his eyes and that maniacal smile, that he was not a one-or-two-roll kind of guy.  

Seven rolls later (the only reason I know it was seven was because the soldiers standing on the outside laughing until their stomachs hurt counted them) I loosened my shoulder straps and unhooked my waist strap, only to discover that I was not upside down, but on one side at a 90-degree angle.  Thank God the soldier strapped in across from me was wearing a Kevlar helmet and body armor.

Seven rolls may only take a few seconds, but when you’re inside tumbling around like a sock in a clothes dryer, that few seconds seems like an eternity. 

As I crawled out of the gunner’s hatch a little dazed and confused, the sound of a woman with a high-pitched voice yelling and cursing throughout the ordeal was still rattling around in my head.  She was screaming words that would make a sailor blush.  But there are no women assigned to my unit. 

Then I remembered the battalion chaplain was strapped in beside me.  The screaming was only him.  I won’t ever repeat the things he said.  His congregation back home may never forgive him.

On a serious note, these rollover drills have drastically reduced the severity of injuries and deaths caused from vehicles flipped over after having been hit by IEDs, traffic accidents or high-speed combat driving.  Although my back is still sore from the experience, the training is truly a lifesaver.

Scott McKee is the Henderson County District Attorney.

 

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