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Fort Riley Desert Training: Day 4

Medics drill on how to respond to mass casualties on the battlefield

Story by Ben Bauman

1:32 p.m. Wednesday, July 16, 2008

Day 4

Transition Day. Today we move from FOB Seattle to our next stop. Initially we were told it would be FOB Miami, but now we're told it's FOB Dallas. Miami is an aviation unit, so Justin was looking forward to a ride in a chopper. Dallas is a field artillery unit, so who knows what we'll get into.

First, we start with chow. More Army eggs, but today with hash browns and a biscuit with gravy. Not bad.

Then, we head to the medic tent for a mass casualty exercise. This is still at Seattle, before we head out this afternoon for Dallas. We hook up with a sergeant in charge of the medical unit. He's a four-time deployed soldier, three times to Iraq, getting ready for a fourth. He walks us through what we might expect to see. There will be an explosion on the FOB, incurring more casualties than they are set up for. They don't know when, of course.

After a little down time at the tent, where we did a few interviews and the medics treated a couple of guys who showed up with sore throats and cold symptoms, there was a radio transmission, about a gunshot wound at the FOB perimeter. Justin and I jumped in the back of a 113 (tracked evac vehicle) and rode over to the scene. We caught them treating the wound victim, and loading him in the vehicle, while another soldier picked us up in a Humvee for the ride back to the med tent. This obviously was not the mass-casualty event.

Ben and Justin take time to sit down with a few soldiers to discuss Army lingo, an alphabet soup of acronyms, and the meaning of “Hooah!” Learn something new here.

On the ride back, an explosion off to our right. Justin swung the camera around, and caught video of the second, and then a third blast. The event was on. We headed over there and watched the first responders work, then watched the medics roll in. Wound assessment revealed a couple spinal injuries, severe open wounds, two were pronounced KIA and seven were transported. They were triaged at the tent, and lined up outside since there's only room for four inside the tent at a time. All seven were treated and then sent on to the COB. In the middle of everything, there was a "real-world" casualty, who suffered a back injury while working on some huge piece of equipment. He was air-evaced to the post hospital.

After the mass-cal event, Justin and I picked up MRE's and headed back to our tent to eat and pack gear. I had MRE #13, cheese tortellini.

13:30 - A Humvee arrives at our tent, we load our gear and head for the FOB TOC to convoy over to COB King. There, we'll be handed off to the guys from FOB Dallas.

Another rough ride to King, we have a few minutes at the TOC to check e-mail and send a quick note, then our escort arrives. The ride to FOB Dallas is even rougher than the trip from Seattle to King. Longer, too.

15:30. Arrived FOB Dallas. It's between a couple of mountains and no cell service gets in. Turned phone off to conserve battery. We were put in a tent just temporarily, because we're not staying here. We're going out to a camp near an Iraqi village with Bravo Company. That is supposed to happen by 9 p.m. (2100). So we go to chow (stuffed pork chop, rice, green beans, gravy, snickers cake and the other usual accouterments) then headed back to the tent to chill. We chilled, talked to some of the guys and waited.

19:30 hours activity picks up. Word has come down that we convoy at 21:00. The guys are busy loading gear, weapons, ammo, cots, etc. for the trip to our combat outpost. We load our gear, as well, but that takes about five minutes. Then we wait. Once we load vehicles and start lining up in a convoy, we know it's going to be a long wait before we roll, because... well, I don't know why, but it always is. This time, though, we appear about to move out, and word comes down that we won't leave until midnight. No explanation, it's the Army.

I assume we'll roll back to the big tent and chill out there for three hours. But I'm wrong. We will stay right where we are, in the vehicles, in convoy formation, and wait. We can get out and move around, but essentially we're stuck, in the dark, on the edge of the FOB. Many guys stretch out on top of vehicles, others (myself included) try to catch a few winks in our seats in the Humvees. Not much success. Eventually, we get on our way, and most have assumed the delay was to allow more time to set up a night attack on our convoy. We arrive, however, without incident, at about 1:45 a.m.

Our tent is the same size as the ones we've been staying in, but with no electricity. Unloading and setting up 90 cots in the dark is quite an operation, but is accomplished in about an hour to 90 minutes, and we are bedded down by about 3 a.m.