News of Fort Riley and the 1st Division.

PATROLLING MANSOUR

Photo by Spc. L.B. Edgar, 7th MPAD

Pfc. Brandon Tripp, an artilleryman with Battery A, 2nd Battalion, 32nd Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, keeps a watchful eye while Soldiers speak with residents of Hateen, a neighborhood in Baghdad's Mansour District. The joint operation between coalition forces and Iraqi security forces disrupted insurgent activities in the area with a search of residents' homes.

Okay, this next bit is for Maggie - Sailors at Fort Riley - about as far away from salt water as you can get in this country...

Hey - they're sure going to be "joint" when it's all over... and I think Lieutenant Del Carpio is *really* going to appreciate being in the Navy, based on how she's found Army life so far...

SAILORS GET USED TO ARMY LIFE AT FUNSTON

By Gary Skidmore
1st Brigade

Navy Cmdr. Phil Blaine is a pharmacist. He's also a member of a transition team destined for Afghanistan. He and the other members of his team will be standing up a hospital when they deploy, but first, they have to get through their training at Fort Riley.

The equipment they wear weighs between 50 and 70 pounds and for someone who isn't used to wearing it, it doesn't take long to get worn down. That was the hardest thing Navy Lt. Priscilla Del Carpio had to deal with. "Never in a million years did I think I'd be doing all this Army stuff," Del Carpio said. "I knew I'd be deploying sooner or later, but I always thought it would have been with the Navy.

'The body armor is something you get used to eventually," Del Carpio said. "But when I first put it on I thought, 'holy moly,' and then add your weapons and all your other gear; it wears you down. "It doesn't hurt nearly as bad as it did the first two days I wore it," she said. "The first day I wore it, I really thought I was going to cry,"

Another thing Del Carpio said she had to get used to were the terms the Army uses. "They speak a different language then we do," she said. "Sometimes we have them slow down and explain what they just said. But we're getting used to it and it's become second nature to us now."

Blaine, Del Caprio and the rest of their team were learning building clearing techniques, one of the most dangerous jobs there is, said Sgt. 1st Class Christopher Walder, the first sergeant for Battery G, 1st Battalion, 5th Field Artillery Regiment. "We're showing them the basic stack procedures, sectors of fire and entry techniques," Walder said.

The training is progressive, Walder said. "It's the crawl, walk, run method of teaching. We're starting everyone off in 'glass houses,'" said Walder, explaining a glass house as a taped-off area symbolizing a building with rooms. The next level for the teams to master is a closed building.

"It's basically the same thing as the glass house but we've added walls and have them work in a dimly-lighted area," Walder said. From there, the last step is a blank-fire assault on a building. "We've added pictures of the enemy and of friendly bystanders," Walder said. "As they make their way through the building they have to pick and choose where they fire.

"Knowing how to do this is a great basic skill to have," Walder said. "No matter what type of unit they belong to, if you get told you have to do this, there's no such thing as an administrative move. You will have to do it, and knowing how will save their lives."

"This is like drinking water through a fire hose," Blaine said of the training. "There's so much to do, so much to learn. We're like sponges and taking it all in." Blaine said since he and his team have been training, they've done a lot of marksmanship, convoy movements, classroom work and language training. "We've had a lot of classroom work in the Dari language," Blaine said.

"Hopefully, we'll be able to converse with our counterparts when we get there. At least we'll be able to say 'hello' and 'goodbye.'"