Culture Shock!

Ft Lewis, WA

I knew I was in for 'something a little different' when as we drove towards our new barracks (nicknamed: "the city of Compton") and I saw the sign for the Shopette on the same space as the sign for the Tactical Shop.  I suppose it is perfectly normal to be able to buy tactical accoutrements (sharp knives, gun holsters, machete-like scary things) 15 feet away from your favorite Nabisco products, only not in the world I just came from.  Culture shock.

I arrived last Sunday night, 5 days ago, and by now what feels like an eternity.  We were bused from the Seattle-Tacoma airport to our barrack city, arriving by about 10:30 pm.  At 11p I heard the most sorrowful version of Taps, played throughout the vast base, I had ever heard.  Plaintive is a better word.

Early the next day, well before light, I met some of my new colleagues and we headed for the DFAC (the dining facility).  The food here is good albeit heavy.  We get two hot meals per day - for example breakfast is eggs, omelets, gravy over biscuits, fruits, cereal, and so on.  You cannot accuse the Army of not feeding their troops well.  For lunch we get an MRE - "meal ready to eat" (alternatively: "meal rejected by everyone"  - but they're really not that bad.)  More on the MRE later.

Monday we were issued our second seabag full o' goodies - foul weather gear for warm and cold weather, helmets, kevlar vest, gloves, cool Oakley-like ballistic glasses.  LOTS of stuff.  We were also issued our weapons - one M16 rifle and one Beretta M9 service revolver.  We rode in cattle cars to get to the drab warehouses that hold all this STUFF.  No kidding - they are like semi's with longitudinal seating in the cattle car part.  Subsequently you have no idea where you are going, you just get dropped off at some warehouse that looks like it's right out of the X-Files set.  Except no Scully and Mulder, just many women, all Asian for some reason, handing you endless amounts of STUFF.

The days are becoming a blur: between Monday and yesterday we received hours of classroom training on the M16 and M9.  The coolest part of the training, other than shooting the weapons themselves, was a sophisticated video game-like simulator which allowed a group to shoot at a target and it would simulate the recoil of the weapon, the sound, and where the round was placed on the realistic target.  Very helpful for when you get on the range as you could get all the mechanics down on firing and reloading the weapon before you got to the range.

I believe it was Wednesday when we went to the M16 range.  It was cold and rainy and fairly miserable.  We had all our gear on - flak jackets, helmets, ballistic glasses, gas masks, ALL of it.  First we spent a few hours zeroing our weapons, i.e. making changes to our sites in order to correct our lines of fire.  This entailed getting into the prone position and shooting repeatedly at an object the size of a pack of gum set 25 meters away.  The range safety officers were responsible for about 4 of us at a time and would recommend changes to our sites after we shot a few rounds.  "You don't look comfortable to me," said my safety officer when I shot -- poorly at first -- my first few rounds.  I thought to myself, "I am laying in a muddy gravel pit with a few inches of cold water filling it, it's raining outside, I am wearing 50 lb of gear, and I suck at this.  How could anyone be comfortable in this setting?"  I did not share my sentiment with him, which seemed to be the right thing to do.  I tried to look more comfortable for him.

We finished up the day by shooting on the actual range, at pop-up targets placed between 50 to 300 meters.  I could barely see the 300 m targets.   We stayed until well after dark because we had to do nighttime qualifying rounds using tracers bullets.  THAT was cool.

The next day was much better - we shot the M9 pistol at a smaller range.  Similar set up - to qualify you had to shoot at pop-up targets.  One of the skills was to be walking towards the target in the shooting  position (arms extended with your weapon, knees bent, legs moving briskly) - a target would pop up and you'd have about 2 seconds to stop and engage.  The instructors were awesome - patient, funny at times but always deadly serious when folks were actually shooting.  This has been the best evolution so far.

Today we had to do something called ISOPREP.  I am not sure what it stands for but it sounds like something you have to drink before a colonoscopy.  It is  strange and a bit unnerving requirement which gathers particular information only you know about yourself, in case you are captured.  This is to authenticate your identity if and when the Defense Department figures out that you are captured, and hopefully rescued ("Did we get the right guy? Let's check the tattoos and scars he said he had in the ISOPREP!").  Weird, and hopefully unnecessary.

We have many more weeks left of these fairly eclectic requirements.  Some are useful, others clearly not.   We do get some language training and cultural awareness training.  More on that later.