One week into the Ft.Bliss CRC. We've received our full “Central Issue Facility” equipment Issue. They've provided three duffel bags worth of additional gear. The story is that when we get on the plane, we'll be allowed these three duffels, plus a carry-on and a computer bag. Unfortunately, we arrived with an approved TWO duffel bags of gear already. So, most of us will be Fedex'ing at least one bag of unwanted/unneeded gear back home. Once we get to Kuwait, the plan is to received another duffel bag of really useful gear (as apposed to what we have now). For those who have read ArmySteve's Blog, you'll see that the chain of events have not changed in over a year (including reporting to CRC with more bags than allowed on the plane). They'll work out the kinks in the system before the conflict is over, I hope.
Many before us have offered sympathy for the experience, and I'm starting to see why. To be fair, the cadre have a difficult mission pulling together a very diverse group of military and civilian personnel and preparing them from an overseas deployment. To make matters even more challenging, there are many many O-6s and O-5s (i.e. Army & Air Force Colonels & Navy Captains) who have a very little patience with wasted time. That being said, there is standard/expected “hurry-up-and-wait“ and then there is simply very, very bad planning & execution of training.
The pinnacle of the week was driving 45 minuted to a M9 qualification range and waiting there for about 3-4 hours only to turn back around because the field medic did not show up. Even more dumbfounding was that the personnel to qualify at the range that day comprised mostly of medical doctors, nurses, and plenty of combat life-savers. When asked why we just didn't utilize these highly skilled personnel, the answer was that they didn't have a stretcher. The inability to overcome and adapt was truly shocking. After a myriad of events such as this through the week, the Battalion Commander, First Sergeant and several of the Cadre offered a series of apologies. Maybe they really did just have a bad week... it does appear planning & execution are beginning to improve.
On the bright side, yesterday we had what might have been one of the most gee-whiz cool training events I've had in the Army. In order to prepare us for convoy traveling through the streets of Iraq, we trained on a “virtual reality” mock-up of a multi-vehicle convoy. Each individual drove/sat in a pseudo-vehicle with full equipment. Each individual either had goggles w/ sight into the “virtual world” or a full windshield view of the virtual world. The movements & actions of each vehicle as well as the actions of each individual within the vehicle was represented within the virtual world. The most important thing was that the streets & buildings are (supposedly) accurate to actual streets within Iraq. Some thought it was just too much of a video game. Maybe so, but I think this will be a great training aid to familiarize a group before actually taking a trip down an unfamiliar part of an Iraqi town.
If nothing else, its a great recruiting tool!