The Mission Pt 2: The Prep

The Mission Pt 2: The Prep

A cavalryman lived on his horse, this is where the line ‘First the horse, then the saddle then the rider’ came from. To watch a movie you would think that we spend most of our time on mission or training how to engage the enemy with direct fire. We spend most of our time getting dirty checking the vehicles. Tom Clancy has made a lot of money writing about the exiting 1% of the time. Reality is that soldiers are engaged in a constant battle against time, elements and wear and tear on vehicles. Sometimes we win.
The morning of a mission I try to sleep in, and stay up late the night before. If you roll at night the mission always stretches into the early morning, and sometimes past dawn. So I roll out of bed and hit the showers around 1030 or 11. Then go to breakfast. The only time I eat actual breakfast is when I am still up from the night before, and that is disturbingly often. Then I get into the Combat Vehicle Crewman coveralls. This has lots of zippered pockets that are both large and easy to get to. It is the exact opposite of what a fobbit likes in a uniform. It is shapeless, comfortable, practical and looks like crap.
At breakfast We eat big, shoveling calories in out mouths with reckless abandon, as we know we will miss dinner and maybe midnight chow also. Then we cram those big Beautiful Pockets with energy drink, V8 and Gatorade and waddle out the door, trying to look inconspicuous. We are supposed to get that stuff issued for missions, but it always seems to be low when we get there.
Out to the motor pool where we mount weapons, and check the trucks. Mechanics go up and down the line checking our work and fixing anything that can be in the short time allowed. Everything must be loaded, checked, tied down and arranged here. Our first couple of times we took way to long to complete this part of prep, now we are hanging out, smoking and joking for ten minutes before we have to leave to test fire the machine guns.
Out the gate to a giant test fire pit and every crew served weapon pops 10-20 rounds into the pit. The only way to make sure your weapons work with machineguns is to actually throw some lead down range. Sometimes one of the trucks will throw a stuffed animal in there as target practice.
Test fire complete we roll over for the intel brief. We have a good intel officer, he lays out all the things happening on and near our route. It takes a lot of work for him to put it together for a mere 20-30 minutes of presentation. Since we are almost early to this brief we conduct our ritual. The RipIt shot gunning. If we have a new person with us SSG Moto conducts a five minute block of instruction. First you hold the can on its side with the pop opening down. The ever present knife is used to cut a hole near the bottom the bigger the better. Then as a group we put out mouths over the cut holes, stand the cans up and pop the tops. This results in a large amount of high sugar, high caffeine content carbonated beverage being poured down your throat.
It is a great way to start the night. So far we have been at work for 4 or more hours and not left the wire. After the Intel brief the chaplain who is at every mission departure gives a little prayer for those who want it, and we go out to pick up our charges for the night. The foreign national truck drivers would make a teamster cry. They are corrupt, difficult to control and drive trucks sometimes literally held together with duct tape and bailing wire. The are also determined to make each mission and will repair, tow or jury rig any truck in the convoy that breaks down. The absolute most versatile of convoys.
We inspect the trucks going with us, then roll out the gate, our vehicles taking up places in front of, with in and in back of the convoy. It is five hours since we first showed up at the motor pool and the night is just beginning.