By Gary Skidmore 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division."Here they come!" came the excited shouts of Spc. Kenneth Dahl, one of five 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division opposing force Soldiers lying in wait for a convoy of transition team Soldiers.
"Get the 240 in place," shouted Sgt. 1st Class James Sheridan as he put the finishing touches on a simulated improvised explosive device."Alright, get ready, here they come."
Dahl, Sheridan, Staff Sgt. Robert Walthall, Pvt. Davis Culter and Spc. Scott Sharpe crouched in the bushes, lying in wait for the convoy to come close enough. When it did, they attacked it with everything they had. "That was beautiful," Dahl said as the last of the convoy passed and his M-240B machine gun was still smoking.
"That's what we're supposed to be here for, keep the teams guessing, making them think and keeping them aware of what's ahead of them," Sheridan, the NCOIC of the team said.
Sheridan and his team leave telltale signs there are IED's on the road, he said. "We use everything we can," Sheridan said, "dead animals, stacked rocks or fallen branches and trash piled up."He and his team are trying to simulate Iraq and Afghanistan as closely as possible.
"We aren't part of the battalion exercises," Sheridan said. "They are role players built into their scenarios. We're totally unscheduled and can hit the convoys anywhere and at anytime."
The whole point to his team, Sheridan said, is to make the TT teams think. "We want to make them aware," he said. We want them to know what to look for and take this all seriously. We want them to be prepared when they deploy, and we want them to live."Although Dahl, Sheridan, Walthall, Culter and Sharpe said they take their mission seriously, they also enjoy the job to the point they almost get giddy when a new set of targets approach.
"I've become fond of the 240," Dahl said. "It's loud and they know when it fires they are in trouble. Our AK's don't fire on auto, and this does .... it really does."As another convoy started down the road, excitement took. The team crouched in the bushes and readied to detonate their IEDs. "This is going to be a good one," Culter said. "They can't see me in these bushes and I'm get 'em good," he giggled.
Heh. That woulda been me, many, many, many years ago, working over Reservists doing their AT that summer I spent with the 12th SF under Captain Clyde and his merry band of pirates. Except I woulda had my eyes open. And I would have been carrying right-handed, so that the hot empties wouldn't be bouncing off of my arm...
Nothing like putting a whistling booby-trap wrapped in a baggie full of CS powder, with the trip wire tied to a stake - so that they'll drive their jeep a few feet before it goes off...
Don't try this at home, kids. I was a boot loot under supervision.
Then there was the time during the E&E Ex that we chained the Sheriff's cruiser axle... not a Porky's Moment (pre-dated the movie, anyway) but... fun. Good thing that particular Sheriff's department didn't have access to dogs back then. We'd never have made the train.
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