Sour Swinger Predominantly follows my Army & Iraq Deployment. Also has some Geek, School, and other talk.

The drill that really wasn’t like drill but technically the last drill until we mobilize has finished. It wasn’t like drill because for one it happened during the week. More precisely yesterday and today. Tomorrow we officially start our mobilization and are considered active duty. Since there’s no break in between, it further in-reinforces the feeling that this wasn’t drill.

Unfortunately I left my camera in Colorado so I was unable to take any pictures or videos. On the plus side, nothing really worth wild happened to take photos of. Wednesday we watch 7 hours of briefings on video. Yes the same 7 hours of briefings we sat through at AT and yes many were videos of power point presentations! Worse, we probably will have to sit through this crap again when we return to Camp Shelby in a few days. Let the bullshit begin!

Today involved some actual training with this laser system that attaches to our rifles called LCATTS (Laser Convoy Counter Ambush Training System). It allows us to fire at targets that will react to the attached lasers. Its not quite like the MILES (Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System), which requires blanks to use. LCATTS will work when firing dry (no ammo at all). SGT Reese, SPC Rhoads, and I missed all this as we needed to go to the hospital. Well Rhoads and I did. SGT Reese drove us. I was involved in a mountain biking crash a few weeks ago which resulted in a bad concussion which I’m still suffering from. Rhoads was in a motorcycle accident last night which involved a lot of road rash and a mild concussion. Both of us are more or less fine.

As for everyone’s attitudes with this deployment so near? Seems no different then any other drill, though tension seemed to be a bit higher then normal with some individuals. Since we still won’t leave for a few days and can still see our families, I don’t think its hit quite yet. There are a few soldiers on advance party who already left and are down in Shelby. Everyone does seem to be in agreement in wanting to do our duty, do it well, and come back home safe.

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The last drill until we deploy has come and gone. Technically its not the last as there is one more in September, however that drill takes us directly into the mobilization so it really won’t feel like drill. Orders were finally issued a few weeks ago. September 19th is our mobe date. It says we are activated for no more then 400 days at Camp Shelby, MI. Soooo, technically I could serve my entire deployment in Mississippi. Wouldn’t that be fun…not!

Drill was pretty laid back but at least didn’t feel as much as a waste of time as July’s Drill. We did some minor MOUT training and loads of packing and breaking down equipment that will be shipped out to Mississippi. Also for a company first, we conducted PT for 2 days!?!?! Usually (if we do PT), its only done once. Hopefully we’ll continue this little practice.


The big event for the weekend was the Company family picnic. All the soldiers wives, girlfriends, and children came out. There was volleyball, football, and that horseshoe toss game. We even managed to get a moon walking thing for the kids. We ended up having more food then we could handle as everyone brought something different. It’s always interesting to see a soldiers other side in life. I only really know these guys from within the Army atmosphere. Seeing the families always adds a new perspective on the men.


Unfortunately there was a briefing prior to the picnic. Correction a 3.5 hour long briefing!!! Someone from above the company thought it would be a great idea to put out last minute information for the families. What they didn’t think about was all the kids! The info put out wasn’t anything no one heard before. Most people were in agreement about how bull that brief was. Its one thing to make soldiers sit through that (hell we did a 7 hr brief in Shelby), but to make hungry family members with little children sit in a hot building is just ridiculously. The brief started at 12 so those expecting lunch to be the picnic suffered hunger pains.


All in all, the weekend went pretty quick and smooth. With only a few more weeks left, time will go quick and last minute deployment preparations will have to be made. I’m honestly WAY behind.

The pictures from this weekend’s drill.

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Drill this past weekend was a total waste of everyone’s time and taxpayers money.  I will not bore anyone with details but basically we some land navigation, weapon’s cleaning, show down inspection, armory cleaning, PT, and a lot of sitting around.  All three days we left early.  We could have easily squeezed everything in two days and still had time to spare.  Some of us decided to play basketball and/or soccer during down time.  I ended up getting a good work out from all of it.  Aside from that, PT was the best thing we did.  Land nav turned into a joke.  There were only three points and at most 100 meters between them.  You could literally see all the points.  Kinda of defeats the purpose of shooting an azimuth and keeping track of your pace so you don’t get “lost”.

You can see all the drill pics here.

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This month, drill flew by in a blink of an eye.  The hours were short and we only had to report for two days.  We haven’t had a drill like this since our ADA days.  To those who don’t know, my unit used to be B 1/213th Air Defense Artillery.  Those were the easy days.  Anyway, since drill was so dull and short, I hardly took any pictures.  Plus this posting will be fairly short.

Saturday was class room instructions all day.  We started with a safety briefing to remind us not to do stupid things.  This was in direct response to the severe Stryker accident HHC caused.  I talked about it in last months posting.  The rest of the day was spent in an Iraqi Basic class…aka learning the Arabic language.  I left knowing three things.  Shalom means peace, thumbs up is equivalent to the middle finger, and its not uncommon (nor considered gay) for males to hold hands.  I’m always blown away when I hear about their culture, especially with how they treat women.  I doubt I’ll pick up the language as I can’t even speak English correctly.

During all this classroom, one by one we also donated blood.  Twenty plus soldiers were willing to donate.  Awesome!  This is the second time the mobile blood bank was asked to come by.  Their last visit was just as successful.  Since our armory doesn’t have any AC, it was nice to walk out of the heat and into a cool RV.

Sunday involved packing the conex and more spray painting of our duffel bags.  We spent the entire day outside and the temperature was +90 degrees!  Good training for the desert.  The fork lift continually getting stuck in the rocks was the most eventful part of the day.  We needed to use a humvee to pull it out.  In the afternoon was an equipment check and pack for AT.

You can see all the drill pics here.

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Last Friday started D/112th weekend drill. First thing on the schedule was a PT test or physical fitness test. This involves three different events in which you are assigned points. A minimum of 60 points is required in each event and 180 points in total. Getting a 300 or 100 in each event is the max. The first event is the push-ups followed by the sit-ups. Both allow 2 minutes to perform as many as possible. The number required to pass is age dependent. For example, my age category is 22 to 27. This requires a minimum of 40 push-ups to get 60 points. The older one gets the fewer one has to do in order to pass, however to max is a little different. The older one gets, the more is needed to get a 100 points. It doesn’t change until 30, where it finally starts to decrease. For my age category, I need 75 push-ups for 100 points.

Following push-ups and sit-ups is the two mile run. Here, you have a certain amount of time to complete the run. Assigning points works the same way. Finally, everyone gets a height and weight check. Anyone over weight gets taped to ensure their body fat percentage is within regulation. Company wide we did fairly well. Only 3 or so failed. We had two people get a 300, Cadet Groff and LT Dacey. Officers setting the standard, I’m impressed. I ended up with a 286. Despite how active I am in all my years of life, I’ve never maxed out my PT test.


Following PT, was prepping our strykers for the rail head operation. Basically, our strykers will be transported on train down to Camp Shelby for our AT (Annual Training). All Guardsmen have to do this during the summer. Since Delta is infantry, the normal 2 weeks is bumped up to 3 weeks. The prepping proved to take longer then I thought. A thorough PMCS (Preventive Maintenance Checks and Services) was first performed. Then all the loose gear inside had to be bubble wrapped and stored in shipping bins. All the screens inside had to be bubble wrapped as well. Any of the larger equipment had to be tied down inside the stryker. During all that, all our duffel bags were spray painted orange and stenciled for identification. This whole process took us into the late afternoon where we were finally released.


The next day required an earlier then normal formation time of 0700. We packed up our gear and bussed down to north east Philly to 56th brigade headquarters. There we met up with the rest of the other companies (Alpha, Bravo, Charlie) in our battalion for some training. Unfortunately HHC (Headquarters and Headquarters Company) didn’t make it there because of a bad accident. I’ve been keeping a watch for internet news however it never appeared. I imagine it made the local news, but since I don’t watch TV I’ll never know. Guess I’ll be the first to report it on the internet.

HHC was on the PA turnpike, in a convoy, heading towards brigade headquarters. One of the humvee’s was towing a trailer when it disconnected and ran off the highway. The convoy then proceeded to pull over to recover the trailer. For some reason, the front stryker came to a sudden stop and the stryker behind it was too close and couldn’t stop in time. It slammed into the back of the front stryker. Then the stryker behind that one couldn’t stop in time and crashed, then the stryker behind that one couldn’t stop in time and crashed, and so on and so forth. This continued until all nine strykers hit into each other! Somewhere in all that a couple humvees also hit and crashed. A civilian car was also clipped by a stryker and sucked under it. Luckily only the front portion of the car was run over.

A stryker weighs +20 tons. Just imagine all that weight crashing around!! Pretty scary. Several soldiers and some civilians were rushed to the hospital. Thankfully no one was seriously injured. This incident makes the rest of the battalion look really bad. I’m sure someone will be loosing rank over all this. Pennsylvania pays over 2 million for each stryker. Last I heard, most of the strykers involved in the accident are totaled. This whole thing could have been avoided had the convoy maintained proper intervals. That and ensured the trailer was attached properly.

With such a story, the rest of the drill day sounds pretty bleak. We had classroom instructions for the entire morning. Then after lunch, we conducted practical exercises on what we learned in the class. Following all that was a written exam to ensure we knew everything. The whole training ensured we knew how to properly evaluate gunnery/driver skills when engaging a target in the stryker with a 50 cal or Mark 19. We’ll be utilizing that training to conduct and test live firing of those weapon systems during AT. Sweet! I love live fire.


Sunday proved to be fairly relaxing day. We did final preparations with the strykers and convoyed out to Mechanicsburg. That’s about a hour and half drive. Our original route took us through a closed off road, so at one point we had to pull over into a Lowes while we reorientated ourselves. Seeing a convoy full of strykers parked in a Lowes definitely brought a lot of attention.


We arrived at the Naval something or something compound. Camera’s were prohibited so I wasn’t able to snap any pictures. It was a rather huge complex full of warehouses which First Sergent assumed a lot of military surplus gear was stored. We drove towards the end of it where we found a plethora of strykers, humvees, and all sorts of Army vehicles lined up to be put onto trains. I’ve never seen so many Army vehicles in one place. There was well over 100 vehicles tightly squeezed together. The train was coming another day, so we simply parked our strykers in their respective position, did final steps to ready them for train departure and bussed back home and were released by mid afternoon.


You can see all the photos from the drill weekend here.

Also, I’d like to say farewell to SGT Fotiou. He landed a weapons of mass destruction job and switched out of the unit. Also, another farewell to Cadet Maye. He’s transferring to a different company within the battalion.

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This drill was a pretty laid back weekend.  The last few weekend drills involved +12 hrs long days in Ft. Dix.  Home station drills in Hamburg usually end up low key with a 0800 formation and a 1700 release time.  Compare that to the 0600 formation till 2200 release time in Dix.  It worked out great for me, since finals are approaching in two weeks and I actually had time in the evening to work on my school things.  The company was pretty split up in training.  Some going here and others going there.

Friday, I had to report to head quarters in Plymouth Meeting with SGT West/Fotiou/Orris.  We were to receive gunnery training.  I started off the day with a bad start.  Google gave me bad directions.  Mix that with severe, morning Philly traffic, and what should have taken me 30 minutes took me an hour and a half.  Luckily I left an hour early so I was only 30 minutes late.

The first class of the day involved the M240B.  Here we learned to dis/assemble, clear & load, and perform a functions check.  We also learned the proper procedure for handling a weapons malfunction.  Our unit has given this training in the past and nothing new was done here.  The only difference is this instruction block authorized us to teach and evaluate others in the tasks.

M240B training took us up to lunch where we were surprised by the meal served.  To those whom are unaware, head quarters company is where you’ll find most of the brass and higher ups.  So it comes as no surprise that head quarters is supplied the best food.  We had the following catered foods to select from: potato salad, coleslaw, marconi salad, penni pasta, meatballs, turkey & ham lunch meat, bread, sub rolls for meatballs, salad, cookies, and ice tea.  Typically you are restricted to the number of each items you get.  Nope not here.  There was so much extra food, soldiers were allowed as much as they wanted.  All that was missing were servants in tuxedos.  Beats my units typical prepackaged (usually still frozen) meals. LoL.



Following lunch, was the same training as the M240B but this time on the 50 Cal BMG (Browning Machine Gun). This was a first for me as I never really handled one before.  Oh how wonderful it felt to charge that puppy.  I’ve fired a 50 Cal before, but always behind an automated system.  The 50 Cal training continued by learning how to work the RWS (Remote Weapons System) which operated the BMG on top of a Stryker.  This also included proper mounting instructions as well.



Of course the day wouldn’t be complete without me getting lost…again…on my way home.  It ended up taking me another hour and fifteen minutes.  By this point, I was getting pretty pissed at myself.  I’m not entirely sure what the rest of Delta was doing.  Some went to the GAP to pick up two Strykers and got severally delayed in the process.  The rest stayed in Hamburg and helped with some sort of packing for SRP.



Saturday, I found myself back in Plymouth meeting with SGT West/Fotiou/Orris.  This time around, I didn’t get lost.  We finished the last of our training which was how to bore sight, not bore light, the 50 Cal with the RWS.  Our instructor kept stressing the difference between sight and light.  This was a somewhat time consuming operation has you had to align both the barrel’s line of sight with the video camera’s.  Upon completion, we returned to Hamburg just in time for lunch.  Surprisingly, we received a catered meal of lasagna though no where near the quality and size of the head quarters catered meals.



The afternoon was spent conducting combatives training.  With full stomachs, many of us were unsure how well we’d hold down the food. LoL.  Army combatives is a relatively new fighting technique.  Its considered a mixed martial arts, deriving a lot from Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and Muay Thai.  If you’ve ever seen a UFC match, you’ve basically seen what the Army teaches.  Combatives was pretty fun and everyone had a blast kicking the shit out of each other.  We covered just a few but effective basic moves.



Sunday was the easiest of all our days.  No surprise, a random piss test was conducted and yours truly was one of the few who were picked.  As usual, I had peed beforehand so I found myself chugging a lot of water.  While I was waiting to piss, the platoons split up and did their own training.  Many of them ended up doing some sort of PT.

I finally was able to pee in time for more reflexive fire training.  This time around, we practiced with the laser sight.  This allowed us to see how steady we were with the weapon.  It also helped to see how quickly we could acquire a target and get our sights on it.  Unfortunately my laser’s battery was dead so I had to keep switching out weapons with everyone.

Following lunch, there was an FRG (Family Readiness Group) meeting for all the soldiers and their families.  New information was put out in regards to our up coming deployment.  Can’t post that updated information here, so any family/friends wanting to know what’s up just shoot me an email or ask me in person.



UPDATE: Though any of the above pics will take you there, I forgot to include a direct link to view all of April drill pics on Flickr.  April Pics. 

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LT Shutlze also gave me a few photos from our August drill.  Unfortunately thats too long ago for me to really remember any specific details.  Basically we conducted a live fire of the TOW missile and a live fire of the M240B.  The TOW firing was a big media event for the GAP as it was the first time in 10 years that it occurred there.

Btw, for those interested the TOW (Tubed launched, Optically Track, Wire Guided) Missile System is basically a tank buster.  Once fired the gunner steers the missile to its target.  Two wires are connected from the launching device to the missile.  One for vertical, the other for horizontal.  These wires carry the movement signals from operator to missile.  Pretty impressive considering the missile can travel over 3km away.  That’s a lot of wire!  The missile doesn’t have the thrust mechanism one would generally think.  Basically the missile has one giant boom in the beginning which throws itself the required distance.  There’s no thrust during flight to keep it up.  Because of this, the missile travels relatively slowly and makes it easier to visually steer it.

You can see the rest of the pics here.

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