Every military unit has at least one guy who takes training too seriously, who doesn’t understand that training exercises aren’t war. He goes all-in on training. The ranger of training. The “trainger.”
I’ve told you about Specialist Grundle, with whom I served in the Afghanistan War. After a mock battle with civilian contractors hired to act as Opposing Forces (OPFOR), he would beg our leadership for the opportunity to conduct a solo raid upon their positions.
“Grundle,” I’d say. “This isn’t war. It’s just training. It’s after five. The OPFOR has all clocked out for the night. There’s nobody there to attack.”
In many military training exercises, soldiers use the Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES), which places lasers on weapons and sensors on vehicles and people. When a soldier’s MILES gear is hit by one of these lasers, it emits a sustained high-pitched whine. He’s “dead.” It’s a battle of beams triggered by blank rounds.
That’s it. It’s not a perfect system for simulating war. It doesn’t account for grenade or knife attacks. Nobody really dies. But the traingers don’t seem to understand that.
When my old Army pal Mike Preston was a sergeant, he encountered one of these traingers at an Army training center in the desert. They were based at a simulated Forward Operations Base (FOB) for several days. These types of training scenarios always culminated in a full-on OPFOR attack from the nearby simulated village.
One afternoon, Preston, Sgt. Dirkson and some other non-commissioned officers were smoking cigarettes by the FOB’s water tank. Private First Class Rickets, a young soldier who struggled to meet both the Army’s minimum weight and intelligence standards, approached.
Rickets lit up a smoke and stood there awkwardly for a while, listening to the others tell old Army stories. Finally, he blurted out, “I wish I was badass like you guys. I’m just a truck driver. So lame.” He drove the big Heavy Expanded Mobility Tactical Truck (HEMTT).
Faithful readers, don’t let anyone ever tell you that military truck drivers aren’t hardcore. In the Iraq War, they were relentlessly targeted for IED attacks. Rough deployments. That might have been a nice thing for Preston or Dirkson to say to young Ricketts. Dirkson had a different idea.
“Tell you what I’d do if I was a truck driver,” Dirkson said. “Pretty soon this FOB will be attacked. When that happens, I’d hop in that truck, drive out there, and draw enemy fire! You think the enemy has any chance against a 40,000-pound HEMTT?”
Preston laughed. He knew Dirkson was messing with the kid.
Rickets didn’t understand the joke. “Hell no! That truck’s a beast!”
Later, the inevitable attack came. Blank rounds popped. Men rushed to defensive positions or to resupply water and ammunition. Rickets sprinted to his big rig and climbed into the cab. A moment later, the big engine roared, and the loud horn sounded. He charged the truck down the road between the OPFOR and the FOB.
“What the f*** is that kid doing!” the observer controller, the exercise’s “referee,” shouted.
I’d love to know what Rickets was thinking. Did he imagine the old soldiers would be impressed? Was he remembering the banjo-heavy country music from late ’70s trucking movies?
Rickets looped the truck around and drove down the road again. He was deep into the trainger mindset. The poor tactics of a cargo truck charge aside, he hadn’t thought through the idea that the OPFOR weren’t real enemies. In a battle of blank rounds and lasers, there was no fire to draw.
THE CONGRESSMAN AND THE CAPTAIN
The entire training scenario was messed up. The fictional battle ground to a halt until the truck was cleared. The officers in charge were outraged, and Rickets was dropped for some serious push-ups.
Preston and Dirkson laughed to tears. But I think Rickets, in his misguided, enthusiastic embrace of Dirkson’s call to action, proved himself the best kind of soldier with that fearless, if foolish, invincible can-do attitude.
Trent Reedy, author of several books including Enduring Freedom, served as a combat engineer in the Iowa Army National Guard from 1999 to 2005, including a tour of duty in Afghanistan.
*Some names and call signs in this story may have been changed due to operational security or privacy concerns.
