Mounted Combat Patrol

These past three days our section had what is our last required training event the Mounted Combat Patrol (MCP). I missed day one since I was required to attend some foundation training but did participate during the last two days. The first day according to the team was spent doing rehearsals as to how to react to the various threats that a convoy can come up on, such as traffic circles, overpasses, hostile civilians, possible vehicle borne IED (VBIED), IED's, sniper fire, a disabled vehicle, etc. After going through the various rehearsals each of the various teams drove through a 18 mile course and were had to react to three to five instances of threats listed above. The goal of day one was to see which of SOP's needed to be rewritten or massaged after going through the course, and the team had to rewrite some of their SOPS.

On the second day we changed convoy commanders, drivers and gunners so that more Soldiers could get a chance to participate in those roles. I was a vehicle commander and the last vehicle on the convoy. It was a long 18 miles as we were hit with an IED, sniper fire, our convoy was hit and one of the vehicles was destroyed and we had to perform first aid on several of the Soldiers. Later on we linked up with another vehicle and got hit with mortars on the road. We got to fire plenty of blanks from the M240B machine gun on our HMMWV and from our M4's during the exercise. We definitely did some things right on that convoy and we found out that there were some areas that we needed to improve on.

Later that evening the next days convoy commander asked me if I wanted to be a gunner and I jumped at doing that, somehow forgetting that the weather for the next day was a low of 18 and high of 35 with rain and snow showers. We were up and out in the parking lot early this morning to get the vehicles ready for todays mission. Our drive up to the range was uneventful and once we arrived for the live fire exercise (LFX) the OC's gave us a safety brief while the wind was doing it's best howling! They then took each of the serials out on the course so that we could see what the course looked like and what to expect and which weapons could be used at the various sites. Our group was chosen as the second one to go, so we had to wait until about 1130 hours and then it was time to pickup the live ammunition do our last minute checks on the weapon systems and get ready to rock and roll. We used three vehicles, two had M2 50 Cal machine guns mounted and the other one had a M240B machine gun. I was on the last vehicle with the 50 cal.

The first scenario enabled the two 50 Cals to fire at various vehicles and dismounted troops targets. Being able to fire the 50 cal on this type of course at the various targets was a lot more fun than the pop up targets at the previous machine gun ranges. On a couple of scenarios some of our team actually got out shooting their M-4's at dismounted troop targets while us machine gunners were firing at the moving vehicle targets. On one of the scenarios the OC's simulated a wound to our driver and we had to get the Soldier out of the driver seat and into the back so we could move and provide first aid to the Soldier. Although it was cold out there I think that we were so pumped up doing this course plus the fact that we would begin our 4 day pass later that evening that time flew by quickly. We no sooner cleaned up the range picking up the brass and links and were heading back to top off the HMMWV's that it began to snow, yes snow! Four days earlier we were at 84 degrees and now it was snowing and coming down pretty good.

After getting fuel it was time to clean the machine guns and get our weapons turned in. We were the last group of Soldiers to finish training for the day, the rest of the task force was done by 1200 hours and many had already made the mad dash to the Kansas City airport. By 1800 hours we were done and had finished picking up our rental vehicles. I was planning to hit the road by 1930 hours having CPT DeCecco, CPT Welch and SFC Bernier riding with me to the airport. They were heading to Philly, Pittsburgh and Boise respectively where as I was waiting for my family to arrive from San Jose. I will post something either Tuesday or Wednesday after getting back to Ft. Riley.