"AMBUSH IS KILLING AND KILLING IS FUN!"
"AMBUSH IS KILLING AND KILLING IS FUN!"
We shouted during our Ambush Patrol class, following a movie clip of Marines doing the same thing. Taught by a group of highly motivated Captains who frequently donned combat gear and face paint to teach us (out of the ordinary, even for the Marines), this class and the other patrolling classes were meant to get us fired up and thinking about everything that goes into a good patrol. The mantra "A Marine squad that can patrol well, can do anything well" has been repeated several times over the last two weeks and it's true. Whether it's Iraq or Afghanistan, patrolling is the simplest and most often-used tactical exercise, as well as one of the most dangerous ones. With our combat orders we were forced to take it up a notch, planning every detail of our routes and actions at every stop. While we usually won't be the ones leading the patrol as officers, it's equally or more important for us to understand everything that goes into patrolling (reconnaissance or security) to keep our Marines safe and support them as best we can.
Monday morning was our first day of patrol (not counting the practice runs we did last week). We stepped off early in the morning to our practice zone for a quick gear check and safety speech. From there we took buses out to the landing zone (LZ) where we got our orders from the patrol leader (PL) for the day (a student tactical billet). I've gotta say that our terrain model that our PL used for his brief rocked; we went out on Sunday before the Super Bowl and built it, complete with little "trees" (branches with leaves on them) that I placed throughout the model. After this we did some station training, with our instructors running us through different procedures used in patrolling, ie. reentering friendly lines, exiting friendly lines, crossing danger areas, forward unit coordination (or FUC, giggle) and command coordination. After what felt like an eternity, we finally got permission to depart friendly lines and stepped off on our patrol. We moved in a tactical column and I was one of the flank securities, so I walked about 100-150 meters away from the main unit, watching for enemy units (the other squads out there). Our patrol leader did a good job of moving us around terrain features to avoid skylining ourselves on a hill or something. This took us a bit off our planned route, however, and the enemy contact that our instructors were counting on didn't happen. Contact in this case involves seeing or hearing another squad (or if you're unlucky, getting ambushed) and then simulating an attack using blank rounds and artillery simulators (grenades that make a whistle and then a loud boom to mimic indirect fire). Finally at the end of the day/patrol we camped out on a hill and waited for a squad to pass us by (our instructor had coordinated it with their instructor). When we finally saw them we opened up on them, hoping to use up the last of our blank rounds. It was pretty cool until our instructor threw an arty sim at us and we had to take cover and then flee to the thicker woods to avoid being "shelled". We then regrouped, debriefed and headed back to the LZ to take buses back to TBS.
A CH-53E Super Stallion doing something obviously cool
Tuesday was a day in garrison, basically resting for yesterday, our Day/Night Ambush Patrol FEX. The day started out similarly, with us heading out to the LZ next to the barracks to prep and get our orders for the day. It was a cold, windy morning, making the order-giving process a little difficult. All of that was forgotten, however, the second the helicopters started to land. My first taste of the free world's largest combat helicopter landing 100 yards away from me left me awestruck until the dust cloud hit me in the face at full force, stinging and forcing me to turn away. Time after time, the big CH-53E Super Stallion (a quick caveat, this is the helicopter from the beginning of Transformers that attacks the base) helicopters from HMX-1 landed in the LZ, picking up squads to take them to their respective LZs for the day's patrols. My squad, A1C (Alpha-One-Charlie) was the very last to go, and when our bird landed, I completely forgot about the cold. We raced out to the helicopter, rifles in one hand, packs slung over the shoulder, heads low and boarded as fast as we could. I have to say that until now I felt like I was just playing "soldier", but this was legit. I buckled myself in (an extremely difficult task in full combat gear), and settled in for the ride, heart racing. The pilot took off low and fast, simulating a combat environment. This also meant that he flew low to the ground (only a couple hundred meters up), and took several evasive turns, leaving us in the back at a 45 deg angle, feeling like we were going to fall out of our chairs and land across the aisle in the lap of the Marine across from us. After what felt like a heartbeat, we touched down for the day. When the "1 minute" sign had been passed, I took off my lap belt and the second the helo hit the deck and the ramp dropped, I was out and running to the woods at the far side of the LZ. As we regrouped and the helo took off, we were left in what felt like complete silence. Being 'tactical' now, we weren't allowed to talk, using only hand and arm signals to communicate. We immediately set out on our patrol, heading south through the forest to our first checkpoint. This time around I was the point man for the assault unit. We had only a short time for our first patrol before we needed to start the process for the night ambush, so we were forced to shorten our route, bringing us into contact with two squads simultaneously at a small creek. The creek being a danger area, the security unit was the only one across (4 men) and when I looked across and saw them giving the sign for enemy spotted, my first thought was that we needed to get across as fast as we could to help them out. Apparently I was the only one paying attention, however, and by the time our PL and his staff realized what was happening, blank rounds were going off and we were forced to charge across the creek in open view of the enemy to try and reinforce our forward unit. We received a "break contact" command, ordering us to peel off to the left where our flank was being attacked by another unit. This is supposed to be a "fire and movement" maneuver, with one Marine covering the other one as they leap-frog away from the enemy. Apparently I was the only one who remembered this during the "battle", so imagine my surprise when I turned around from covering my unit to see them a 100 yards away, facing the other direction. I hope had that happened in real life they'd put me in for a Medal of Honor for giving my life for them, because I'm pretty sure I would have been dead at that point. After that engagement, which my squad 'lost', we got a quick debrief from our instructors and moved on to our next LZ to prep for the night patrol.
We spent a couple hours at the next LZ (LZ Martin) building a terrain model, getting some food in us, putting on warmer gear and getting our order for the night from our new PL. After some quick rehearsals, we got our gear on and started messing with the halo mounts for our night vision goggles (NVG's). These mounts are basically a head harness that the NVG attaches to, taking the place of our kevlar helmets if we so choose. A better description of these is a migraine machine; those things sucked. Apparently we took too long doing this, however, so the instructor decided to throw an arty sim at us, forcing us to take cover, and then sprint for the woods, gear flopping everywhere. This threw us off completely, as we ended up across the LZ from the direction we needed to be heading. As we moved around the LZ to the other side, a Lt from the squad decided to drop her halo mount, not noticing it for several minutes (why she wasn't wearing it is beyond me). This forced us to halt the patrol to look for it, stealing valuable time from our PL. I finally found it several hundred meters behind where she claimed she lost it (thankfully I have some experience with said Lt, so I was skeptical of her claims, but I digress). For the sake of our ambush, we were forced to expedite the movement, missing out on some of the tactical aspects of moving to the ambush site. We set 360 security as our PL reconned the ambush site, and when he returned, we picked up and moved in a line to the site and were set in our positions for the night. Lying there perfectly still and quiet for 1.5 hours wasn't too bad except that I had to piss the whole time, but at least that kept me awake. Finally the tug came on the line we were holding, signaling an enemy in the kill zone. The PL opened fire on the enemy, setting off a ridiculous amount of noise as 17 Marines opened up on the helpless Lt's in the trail. I personally had my weapon on 3-round burst, since having saved rounds at the end of the day is a logistical pain in the ass, and I fired through my magazine faster than I thought possible. Thankfully it wasn't a real ambush, because I was dry in about 6 seconds. The cease-fire call came, and I moved out into the kill zone with my unit, ready to search the enemy for intel and weapons. Apparently some of the guys in my unit were asleep however, since it took them absolutely forever to get out of there. My buddy and I, him with SAW pointed at the enemy as I searched them, moved down the line, searching as fast we could in the 2 minutes allotted. Our time was up and we needed to move before reinforcements arrived, so we punched back into the tree line and headed back to our rally point, moving with our NVG's on. This sounds cooler than it was as this point was a huge clusterf*&% as disoriented Lt's tried to move in the dark (not everyone is cut out for infantry, to put it as nice as I can). We headed off on our route to the LZ for extraction, being forced finally to take the road (an obvious no-no in a combat environment) as our instructor had to hurry us to make the helo extract. We stopped for a quick debrief, and then lined up in the trees next to the LZ. I stood next to the radioman as he called the helo (NIGHTHAWK 34, this is A1C, over) and setup the extract. The bird came in in the dark and landed facing us, forcing us to run out in similar fashion to the morning around the tail and up the ramp. The inside reminded me of the helo scene from The Rock, with everything bathed in blue light. The crew chiefs and pilots had their helmet-mounted NVG's, which looked awesome. They flew us back to TBS in a much more tame fashion than the morning, with combat no longer being simulated. We filed out again in the semi-dark LZ and proceeded back to clean our gear and get some food and rest.
I've gotta say, patrolling was awesome. Our Captain told us this is his favorite FEX and I can see why. Even as I write this, I can hear the helicopters landing for today's group (the other half of our Company). Today has a new treat on the docket for us: gas chamber time! Everyone who's been through it says it's not so bad...I'll let you know how it goes. Hopefully CS gas isn't too much worse than the pepper spray the police use at Halloween in Madison...
