Wild and Wonderful...

A number of years ago, my MP Company took part in a large exercise held in West Virginia.  It was probably one of the best exercises for us I can remember.  We were a CS (Combat Support) MP unit which means we were expected to do all of our law enforcement missions as well as conduct small arms operations and take on "light" infantry kinds of missions.

When we went to the pre-operations briefings, we were told that we would be out in the wilds, on our own, for 14 days, responding to mission taskings, conducting MP opns., and also possibly serving as the "city managers of a local town" if martial law was declared (a fictional scenario of course).  Our only contact with any sort of higher headquarters would be via radio (if they worked down there) or runners (if they didn't get lost).  We had to conduct logistics runs, do our own cooking, and anything else that would be required to survive for that time period.  MAN -- we were in hog heaven.  I mean, what's not to like!!

In these pictures I will try to give you a brief overview of our "AO."  I have also put a number of other pictures at the bottom of the right-hand side column.  Clicking on the designated link (WVa Army Pix)..

Keep in mind this was by far one of the top two or three ATs we ever took part in.  These Soldiers took to this like wolves to fresh meat.  I was really impressed with the way they handled all the "hardships" (14 straight days of rain, flooding, 4"-5" of  clay mud, and , oh, did I mention LOTS and LOTS of rain, soaked uniforms, etc.).  These were some of the finest field MPs I have ever come across and I would put them up against any from any other Brigade.

This was the entrance to our company base camp.  I got my first look at it a few days prior to the start of the exercise.  I figured this would be a great place and this little but of water would dry up soon enough.  It wasn't raining on our recon day!

This was the entrance to our base camp two days later.  This creek started out as a trickle and ended up with a few days of the water coming up over the sidewalls by the driver.  This was the average height.  At least we would get an undercarriage wash each time we came back from a mission.

Everyone who has ever been in the Army knows a headquarters has to have a "Company Street."  Well this was ours.  It went from the creek entrance pretty much uphill.

This was our company CP.  You'll notice the engineer tape up around the area.  That was to give people a safe walkway at night.  I don't recall a darker area any other time in my career. 

On the recon of the area, I should have known this might be a "messy" assignment when I noticed a pick-up truck blasting down the road with a port-a-john in the back (the little white dot in the middle of the picture).  It was one of the locals who had just stolen ours.  Seems like that was our whole 14-day allotment.  It was a good thing we knew how to dig slit trenches and our medics knew their sanitation training.

My cooks had a pretty good sense of humor.  They sent me a radio message telling me they had received a special meal just for us since we had been thru a whole week of rain.  They told me they had "secured" some ribs and we would have a cook-out.  Pretty funny, huh.  Oh, yes, there were black bears in these woods.  Never saw any, but saw signs of them.

How's this for a greeting committee.  I was on a visit to one of the platoons and the inn-keeper (platoon leader) and his front desk man (platoon sergeant) came out to greet me.  Really gives you that "Welcome home, dad" feeling.

I know this may not seem like much to a lot of readers, but to those who were there it was truly, "Wild and Wonderful."  These Soldiers learned a lot about themselves and learned to rely on their training.

One other thing I forgot to mention, during this whole time, we were undergoing a training evaluation by one of the Army's Training Divisions.  During this test, the training guys were supposed to try to get into our areas, sneak up on us, and generally cause havoc.  Our soldiers were so hyped to be doing this exercise, their patrols, OPs and LPs would intercept the training guys every time they tried something.  It got to the point that they pretty much called off that part because we were always way ahead of them.

Our platoons were separated from the company CP and had their own AO to secure from which they conducted missions.  That also meant we had to operate satellite feeding and logistic operations.  The training guys tried to disrupt these but they should have known that if they got the platoons food, the platoon didn't eat.  You generally don't mess with a hungry MP's meals. The trouble is they would send out mess guys to see if we were doing headcount right or eating in a tactical manner. These guys were captured almost every day, and I was finally ordered to   stop patrolling and let them in.  I wonder if that is the way the enemy would have done it.

As I look back at these pictures, I have only one regret -- I didn't write the names of the Soldiers on the back of the picture.  I remember the faces.  I remember little things about each of them -- how they liked to laugh, how they really did train hard, how they all took their job very seriously, but were able to have fun at the same time.  I just don't remember all their names.  For that I apologize.

This exercise was totally foreign to most peoples' sense of being out in nature.  It was hard.  We were pretty much cut off from most of the comforts people think they have to have to survive.  The hours were long and the days full of demands unfamiliar to those who strictly went by a book.  I got a deeper understanding of how my dad and his comrades lived during during WWII (He told me about it sometimes, but until I experienced this small bit of discomfort, I never really understood it. I know this was only training and none of my troops got killed, but I still think I got a better understanding of what he did.).  

I do know, however, that this was a real springboard for my military service.  It refreshed my batteries.  Gave me a shot of "hooah" which lasted well into the later years.


I shall not die of a cold. I shall die of having lived. (Willa Cather - Death comes for the Archbishop)

Hooah