Road-threat drills keep 39th alert
By Amy Schlesing (Contact)
NORTHERN KUWAIT — Lt. Jason Hogue juggled his radio, watching his platoon maneuver up the curvy road toward an overpass on the hazy horizon.
The humvees leapfrogged around him, bounding up the road. They were looking for trouble, searching for bombsand snipers waiting for the supply convoy they were protecting.
Blue road signs identical to those found just a few miles north in Iraq poke out of the sand, indicating coming towns in both English and Arabic.
Chatter constantly crackled over the radio in Hogue’s hand.
Two Mercedes-Benz sedans appeared to the right, careening toward the convoy on a side road near a makeshift town of plywood houses.
“Shut that road down,” Hogue of Benton hollered into the microphone. “There you go.”
The men and women of Alpha Company, 2nd Battalion of Arkansas’ 39th Infantry Brigade are practicing clearing a pathfor supply convoys, just as they will in Iraq. A big chunk of the brigade’s diverse mission will be convoy protection, escorting civilian convoys as they traverse the volatile region.
It is the primary mission for the Gunslingers - as 2nd Battalion is known.
This is optional training onthe firing ranges of northern Kuwait, yet it’s some of the most realistic training these soldiers have received since mobilizing in October. Soldiers are only required to attend a handful of briefings and to calibrate the sights on their weapons before heading north.
But day after day the approximately 2,800 soldiers of Arkansas’ 39th Infantry Brigade head down these bumpy desert roads to practice the job they are waiting to do.
“This gives them confidence in themselves and their equipment,” said 2nd Battalion Command Sgt. Maj. Philip Johnson of El Dorado.
Some ranges allow soldiers to fire live rounds while practicing maneuvers. Others include civilians dressed as Iraqis who play roles as members of friendly crowds or suicide bombers. Blank rounds are used on those ranges.
“This range has so many things they have to be looking for, it’s like real combat,” said Lt. Col. Mickey Stewart of Vilonia, 2nd Battalion commander.
That training will soon draw to a close, as the brigade heads north to relieve current units and take over their roles in the war.
Hogue watched his platoon’s humvees maneuver into a village built out of plywood amid the sand dunes, their gunners swinging left and right in their rooftop turrets.
A man in a red and white head scarf leaned back against a Jeep Cherokee and lit a cigarette. Another man held a cell phone to his ear. Nearby, it appeared a third man was counting the trucks.
“Keep your eyes out,” Hogue said as they approached the overpass built over the sandy road solely for this training. “We’re in a [roadside bomb] hot spot.”
A soldier in the lead truckspotted the day’s first roadside bomb.
Soldiers poured out of the trucks to hunt for the man holding the bomb trigger. They searched houses and cars, shooting at armed target dummies as they moved. Tensions mounted as the fight escalated.
As the activity continued up the road, Pfc. Chris Taylor of Paragould pointed out his window to a vehicle.
“That vehicle’s making a right,” he said.
“I think it’s just moving down the road,” Hogue reassured him.
And then a boom, smoke and gunfire.
A simulated bomb - similar to a flash bang used by police - blew up on the other side of the overpass.
The radio came alive with voices.
“It looks like we have command wire,” one of the trucks reported, indicating another bomb. “We’ve got the triggerman at 2 o’clock!”
“If you see the triggerman, light him up,” Hogue said without hesitation.
As they chased him down, another voice came on the radio.
“Sniper, sniper, sniper! Right side! We need help! We need help!”
Trucks moved around as machine-gunners went to work.
More bombs were uncovered along the road as trainers tossed smoke grenades and bomb simulators at the trucks.
As the soldiers worked through each scenario, dragonflies and honeybees flitted around the trucks, seemingly unfazed by the mock battle’s gunfire and smoke.
Just as all the roadside bombswere cleared and the trucks started rolling again, a white car sped toward to the convoy not unlike a suicide bomber would.
“Something just went off up there, what’s going on?” Hogue asked over the radio.
As the report came down from the front trucks, Spc. Lester Richardson of Rogers, who was driving Hogue’s vehicle, looked back at Taylor and said, “Last night, this range seemed a lot shorter.”
Taylor nodded.
They had practiced tactics the night before without the civilian actors, gunfire and bomb simulators.
The convoy was attacked by mock mortar-shell fire, mobbed by a group of women in black head-to-toe cloaks and encountered an Iraqi policeman trying to deal with a traffic wreck before it was all over.
Afterward, the trainers went through what worked and what didn’t. They had been watching how the soldiers reacted to the bomb simulators.
The mob of women and the Iraqi policeman were known friendlies, the trainers reminded the soldiers. Some soldiers had threatened and yelled at the police officer when he refused to move his truck out of the convoy’s path.
The policeman wanted help treating someone wounded in the traffic accident.
Be careful how you handle those situations to keep them friendly, the trainers said, suggesting that they could have helped the accident victim.
As discussion moved to the sniper and bomb triggerman, the group debated whether the target dummy in a window was holding a rifle or a rocket-propelled grenade.
“Are you sure it was a [rocket-propelled grenade?]” one trainer asked the gunner who opened fire on the target.
“I just saw a man in the window,” the gunner answered matter-of-factly. “He pointed a weapon at me so I shot him. That’s it.”
This article was published Monday, March 31, 2008.
Front Section, Pages 1, 7 on 03/31/2008
