Title: Unit uses Bliss to train for convoy duty in Iraq
Author: Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
Date: March 12, 2007
Section: News
McGREGOR RANGE BASE CAMP, N.M. -- Forgetting to shut your door can be a fatal mistake when performing convoy duty in Iraq."If a sniper shoots through the open door, it ricochets all around the vehicle," explained Sgt. 1st Class Chad Lokken, an instructor with the 5th Armored Brigade out of Fort Carson, Colo. He added that the Humvee doors also provide protection from roadside bombs.
Lokken and others with the 2nd Battalion, 362nd Regiment, have just begun an 8-month tour of duty at Fort Bliss where they are training soldiers, sailors and airmen to survive convoy duty in Iraq or Afghanistan. Most of the instructors, including Lokken, already have served tours in one or both of those countries.
For the next three or four days they will be training 76 Navy sailors from different units who are scheduled to deploy to Iraq. On Sunday, the training began with sand tables (like a child's sand box) and blocks of wood to demonstrate different types of threats and responses. Tomorrow, they are scheduled to begin the "live-fire" part of the exercise.
The sailors, broken into three groups, will repeat the tactics, techniques and procedures until they become second nature. That means not even having to think about closing your door.
"Repetition builds competence and confidence," said Capt. James Scrogin, with the 5th Armored Brigade. "We want their reactions to be reflexive."
On Monday, the sailors drove up and down a mile-and-a-half of dusty road just south of the McGregor Range Base Camp, where they were subjected to simulated ambushes, improvised explosive devices, road obstructions and other situations they can expect to encounter in Iraq.
Lokken's Humvee bumped over sand dunes and yucca as it worked its way around and through the five-vehicle convoy putting him where he needed to be to observe the unit's reactions.
As the convoy sped along, the radio growled and a sailor reported a suspicious vehicle. The convoy was under attack by a woman and a man dressed in robes so they resemble Middle Eastern insurgents and shooting M-16s loaded with blanks so the sailors could hear the enemy fire.
They were supposed to drive through the ambush, but things changed when the code word "echo" crackled over the radio.
"They've apparently seen something they think is an IED," Lokken explained, adding that it wasn't one planted by his crew. "There's so much (communication) wire from previous units out here, it could be any number of things."
Lokken pressed the microphone button and asked for a description.
"There are two wires coming up from the ground on the port side," a sailor responded, adding that the wires appear to be connected to a gold canister.
Some vehicles already had passed the suspected IED, so they split with three on one side and two on the other -- all at safe distances.
Anytime they stop for more than a minute or two, they perform the "5-25" procedure. It starts with the gunner, who, standing in the gun turret placed in the Humvee's roof, examines the ground within about five meters. Then someone in the Humvee gets out and performs a "dismount search pattern" to examine the area within 25 meters of the vehicle.
They are looking for anything out of the ordinary. Wires, containers, disturbed or off-color soil all could signal the presence of a roadside bomb.
The sailors blocked the road to prevent an ambush and set up zones on both ends. Anyone approaching the convoy now would first receive warnings. If the warnings go unheeded, the sailors are to use deadly force.
Then came a report of another suspected IED.
"They think that everything is an IED and that's something we have to work on," Lokken said, calling for the sailors to assemble near his vehicle for an "after-action review." "If we stop every time we see something today, we'll never finish."
On the side of the road, Lokken dragged his boot through the dirt creating a "T" with a long stem that symbolized the roads the convoy had been traveling on. He knelt down placing five spent blank shells -- the road is littered with them -- in a line to represent the convoy. As he went through the exercise, he adjusted the shells to show how the incident developed.
He started with the ambush. A gunner from one of the Humvees described his sighting of a blue four-wheel-drive, with armed individuals next to it.
"Does everyone in Iraq have an AK-47?" Lokken asks.
"Yes," comes the response, more or less in unison.
"Do they have a right to carry a weapon?"
Again the group answers, "Yes."
Lokken was emphasizing that the sailors need to see "hostile intent" before they shoot. Drive through a small arms ambush, he told them.
"You have to get out of the kill zone because otherwise, one casualty turns into two, turns into three," he said.
He told them that they were "thinking the right things," but added that they must learn to make quick decisions about what might be a roadside bomb.
As he walked back to his Humvee, Lokken said, "You've kind of got to tap dance along that razor's edge. Pay attention to what's out there, but don't get caught up."
The sailors will repeat the exercises until they are practiced and fluid, Scrogin said. The time it takes for the training depends on how quickly they learn.
The reason there are sailors on a high-desert post, he explained, is that the Army is finding ways to bolster their ranks.
They will take over security and civil engineering tasks inside forward operating bases and at other locations, Scrogin said. "That leaves the Army to do what we're more proficient at," he said, "things like combat patrols."
Maj. Marty Lewton, the convoy operations officer in charge, gave a hint of what the sailors will face in the coming days.
"We try to get a vehicle-borne IED inside their convoy," Lewton said. "Then we hit them with all sorts of IEDs. ... We hit them with all sorts of ambushes. We work on escalation of force and mix them with civilians."
Chris Roberts may be reached at chrisr@elpasotimes.com; 546-6136.
Preparing for war
More U.S. troops in Iraq die from improvised explosive devices and small arms fire than any other cause and more often than not those troops are traveling in convoys when they are attacked. After the invasion of Iraq, "convoy life-fire" training was emphasized at Fort Bliss.
The Army uses soldiers who were recently in that country as trainers to prepare U.S. soldiers.
For three days, the El Paso Times will be embedded with a 5th Armored Brigade unit out of Fort Carson, Colo., that conducts convoy training at McGregor Range. The Army uses a technique called "crawl, walk, run" to move troops through the program.
Today: Crawl -- A group of Navy sailors have finished their class work and have hit a small section of McGregor Range road to begin facing relatively uncomplicated attacks on five-Humvee convoys.
Wednesday: Walk -- The sailors will face training for mass casualties, destroyed vehicles and stationary and driven car bombs.
Thursday: Run -- The sailors will drive a "live-fire" route with pop-up targets representing both the civilian population and enemy forces, and charges that provide the noise of actual roadside bombs. They will be firing live ammunition.
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<A HREF="http://extras.mnginteractive.com/live/media/site525/2007/0312/20070312__0313-a1-convoy~1.jpg" TARGET="_blank">Photo:
Sgt. 1st Class Chad Lokken, with the 5th Armored Brigade out of Fort Carson, Colo., used a rock and spent M-16 blank casings to review a simulated attack Monday during convoy training at Fort Bliss' McGregor Range. Lokken and others from his unit were training a group of sailors who soon will deploy to Iraq.<br>
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Author: Chris Roberts / El Paso Times
Section: News
Copyright (c) 2007 El Paso Times, a MediaNews Group Newspaper.
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