CHAPTER 1

Fort Stewart, Georgia13 February 2005-31 March 2005

After the New Year rang in 2005, the soldiers of third platoonand the mountain company prepared to move out to themobilization station at Fort Stewart, Georgia. The date forthem to leave as a unit on a chartered aircraft was January 7. The unitleft Rhode Island with no idea of what to expect over the next year,other than a long time away from home.

The platoon arrived at Fort Stewart and the soldiers settled intothe place they would call home for the next four or five months. Theliving quarters were on the main post and consisted of three open-baybuildings and a rundown shoddy stone building that was to be used asa tactical operations center (TOC) and an arms room/supply room. Thearms protection was not up to par, so the headquarters section neededto have one person on duty at all times to guard the weapons and othersensitive items.

The platoon barracks was a Vietnam-era wooden building with atile floor and cinder block walls, complete with two-by-four rafters anda roof that leaked. The barracks stank like sawdust and mildew, and I'msure there was a hint of mold under the floorboards. To an infantryman,the living quarters were acceptable, although any other soldier wouldconsider them the worst of the worst. The beds were the standardarmy-issue metal bunk beds with a mattress that could be either reallyuncomfortable or really comfortable.

The first few nights the soldiers settled in to these five-star hotels.The next thing to write home about was the showers and the latrines.In tradition with almost every army barracks across the nation, the hotwater was erratic and would come and go throughout the time we werethere. But all in all, it wasn't as bad as it could be. The weather was atleast cold and dry, not the summertime sweltering heat and humidity.

The platoon began to get acquainted with the higher unit we weregoing to war with. The company was to be attached to Task Force (TF)Cobra for the next seventeen months. Task Force Cobra was madeup mainly of members of the Georgia Army National Guard's FirstBattalion, 118th Field Artillery Regiment, which fell under the 48thInfantry Brigade Combat Team. The TF consisted of a headquartersbattery, a service battery, an alpha battery, Bravo Company 1-115thInfantry (Maryland Army National Guard), and Delta Company, 3-172IN (MTN).

The battalion commander was LTC Don Beard, a highly motivatedAirborne Ranger who gave an unforgettable introduction speech tothe company upon its arrival at Fort Stewart. The staff seemed to havesome issues at the beginning, as all units do their first few weeks at themob site, but everything started to mend as the platoon got into itstraining.

The crawl-walk-run phase was a big part of the first month oftraining for the platoon. The army likes the idea of first trainingindividual tasks, then team tasks, and then moving on to collectivetasks. Individual tasks were such things as qualifying with your assignedweapon, performing voice communications, first aid, call for fire,reacting to indirect and direct contact, and nuclear, biological, andchemical (NBC) survivability. Team tasks were done at the fire-teamlevel, such as battle drills, clearing a room, hallway, or staircase, andcrew serve weapons qualification. The final part of the training wasat squad and platoon levels, where all elements work together. Thesetended to be the most confusing and most practiced events, especiallyif it involved live fire while mounted on Humvees or while dismountedand clearing villages.

A problem that many of the soldiers had was that the trainingsupport battalion (TSB) constantly lost their training records. Thesoldiers' morale dropped as they had to repeat training again and againin order to get cleared and so we could move on to the collective training,which was to take place in March. After hearing enough complaintsfrom company and battalion leadership, by the time February rolledaround the TSB finally got its act together.

I was taken aback by the quality of equipment, weapons, andammunition the army gave us. In my more than eight years in themilitary, I had never seen so much top-of-the-line resources given to ourunit. Like a marine in the Pacific theater getting a meal of steak andeggs before a beach landing, we infantrymen were given the best of thebest before going to fight our generation's war in Iraq.

Another downside to the training at Fort Stewart was that combat-supportsoldiers taught us our combat arms training, such as convoy livefire. People who had never been to Iraq or even fired a machine gun outof basic training were talking as if they were experts, and they'd barkorders and commands at us as if they were drill sergeants.

The best part of the...