CPX

VERY interesting day, they’ve been waiting for us…

This CPX was the culmination of months of training and was designed to show off the unit and staff for the incoming crew.

Usually, the MTR’s train at the company level which means that sections train independently as a transportation unit. The cargo trucks interspersed with gun trucks that go out as a team and each vehicle has an assignment to accomplish in the event of an incident. These battle drills are practiced over and over here on base so that when they get hit on the roads they’re not standing around like tourists. We got the briefing last night on the plan for today and it went very well. They move as a unit, they know what to do when the “IED” went off and they had some casualties they had to address while providing security and getting the downed vehicle hooked up to another vehicle. They did a good job with that. They took small arms fire and drove thru the kill zone.

The main training effort wasn’t just one company conducting a single mission, this was multiple companies commanded by the Operations section who juggled transportation movement requests that came at them every two hours. They had to configure the request and use available assets to fill, figure out how many trucks were available, what cargo could fit on the trucks, drivers, dispatches, etc. This was 9 missions with convoys leaving every two hours or so (jaunt around the base and thru the kill zones takes about an hour) and they couldn’t use the same crews twice. This was really a test larger than just a single mission, this tested the Regiment as a whole. This would have challenged a US transportation unit, so it was a solid demonstration of their capabilities and well done.

The Iraqi’s do not want to be embarrassed in front of the Americans, so they put their strongest players into the key leadership positions: radioman, convoy commanders, operations officer are all used over and over, nobody else had gotten the chance to learn (or fail). This put soldiers who’ve never had the chance to be in charge…in charge.

Our army does the same thing but we do it on the fly, we’ll “kill” the senior leader in charge and turn to the second in command and ask them what they’re going to do. It’s very good training at all levels and really very advanced training. The operations center was a bee hive as the radio operator relayed significant acts (SIGACTS) to the Ops team and they kept track of convoys as they passed “checkpoints” in the training and encountered an incident. It was well done and far exceeded where I thought their training was. The ultimate step will be independent operations on Iraqi roads and this training went a long way proving they’re capable of missions like that in the near future.

I even ended up being part of the play. The outgoing commander and I attempted to drive thru a checkpoint but were stopped at gunpoint, searched and segregated while they searched the vehicle (they found the fake IED in the trunk) and then were processed as the criminals we are. Excellent training and very thorough.

For lunch, I ate in the DFAC with the Iraqi officers. The food was good, it was a large serving of rice covered in a tomato based gravy with baked chicken on the side, actually quite good. They had some baked bread that was as good as anything I’ve had in a long while. I haven’t gotten sick yet so that’s a good omen. The team here said to eat at lunch because they take more care with the noon meal.

I’ve been around to meet all of the leaders on this base. I’ve had enough Chai tea to keep me awake for a while. They serve it in small demitasse cups with the bottom third of the cup filled with sugar. You stir the sugar into the tea; it’s a very sweet and not unrefreshing treat that's pretty good. They don’t seem to have a problem stopping whatever they’re doing to kick back and drink Chai tea with you. John (guy I’m replacing) finally had to put his foot down and decline the offers for tea because they would spend the afternoon drinking Chai. Certainly a different culture...

Best wishes from Iraq!