Athens Review, Athens, Texas

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    McKee at Camp Shelby

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January 28, 2010

GUEST COLUMN: Fighting mother nature

Scott McKee Special to the Review

EDITOR’S NOTE: The second of a series of columns written by Henderson County District Attorney Scott McKee who has been deployed for nine months to Iraq with the Army National Guard.

The life of an infantryman is a life of physical discomfort. He is always at the mercy of Mother Nature. Rain, snow, cold, heat, sun and wind are always dictating what kind of day he will have. The infantryman prays for good weather like the rancher prays for rain. Week three here at Camp Shelby, Miss., and training for Iraq has picked up to a steady pace. The unit I am with, deployed to Iraq in 2005 as a mechanized infantry unit. The 256th or Tiger Brigade saw some of the most intense fighting of the war and took more than its share of casualties.

Many of the soldiers who made the first trip with the Tiger Brigade are still with the unit and are a wealth of information for the young soldiers on their first deployment. Last week was spent on the rifle range. It was important for me to spend as much time as I could and shoot as many rounds as they would let me since it had been so long since I last qualified with an M16 rifle. As any hunter will tell you, shooting consistently accurate is something that takes practice.

Some people are naturals, but even they have to spend many hours with their rifle to be at maximum proficiency. This week was mostly spent training to recognize and react to Improvised Explosive Devices or IEDs. IEDs have caused more combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan than anything else. So you can imagine many hours of training are dedicated to dealing with them. It is not a matter of if you will get hit by one, but when.

The cadre here at Shelby takes this training very seriously and set up realistic scenarios called training lanes that crews must pass before deploying. The crew that I am assigned to for training includes a staff sergeant, who while serving in Iraq in 2005, was hit numerous times by IEDs. He lost drivers, gunners and was even seriously injured himself. But here he is, back again, preparing to deploy and sharing his experiences and knowledge with the rest of us. Guys like him are the real heroes and I am proud to serve with them.

Scott McKee is the Henderson County District Attorney who is being deployed to Iraq 256th Infantry Brigade.

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