Ian Miller

I am back home. ECT is over and I am still in a euphoric state of mind. On some level, the 14 days passed by quickly. When I double click into each day though, I can remember many more details that make my initial memory of ECT seem an underestimation.

The first thing that the reader should know about Ft Irwin is the heat, the sweltering, dominating, soul-sucking heat. At 0500 every morning, the sun appeared in the sky and blasted the Earth until 2000. Those hours between 2000 and 0500 were of course the best hours of ECT. Morale increased tenfold as soon as the sun went down. Death Valley is a desert so shade meant legitimate respite from the heat. In Florida, the humidity means it doesn’t matter whether the sun is shining on you or not. The first 2 days of ECT our company holed up in RUBA. Ft Irwin is home to the National Training Center (NTC) which is a pre-combat validation test designed for company-sized elements and bigger. When a unit comes to NTC (or “does a rotation at NTC”), they typically arrive at RUBA, do all the bullshit in-processing activities, then ship out to “the Box” which is the field, and then on the way out, make another pitstop at RUBA. RUBA is a mini town with showers and a miniature PX and a few food trucks and some semi-permanent tent structures that are filled with cots. The 350th occupied Tent A for the first 2 days of ECT. There was a lot of downtime during these first 2 days. Its interesting because when you’ve carved out a 14 day period in your head, and are expecting to do nothing other than be a Soldier for 14 days, you don’t get as frustrated with wasted time. In fact, I was grateful for those first 2 days because it meant I didn’t have to get dirty and tired until there were only 12 days left in ECT. On day 2, we went to the gas chambers and got tear-gassed. We were given gas masks. At some point, the instructor told us to take our masks off and take a deep breath in so that we could know what it feels like to inhale CS gas. I took my mask off but didn’t hear the instruction to breathe in. Everyone else was crying and choking on the way out. I felt fine. On day 3, we shipped out to the Box.

The next day was Bivouac setup, followed by 2 days of STX lanes, followed by 2 days of demo range. The first 2.5 days went fine. The first mission I was given was a recon. We were supposed to find the grid coords for this enemy truck that about a kilometer away from our SP point. To do that, we had to shoot an azimuth to the truck from 2 locations, thus allowing us to triangulate the truck’s position. The last spot we had to shoot an azimuth from was an enemy town. Nowhere in the mission did the CO say we should assault the town. Tucked away in the execution paragraph, apparently he used the word “occupy” when discussing the town. But in the mission statement, there was no mention of occupying or assaulting. So when it came time to get the azimuth from the town, I took a small leader’s recon element to the edge of the town, shot the azimuth, and got the hell out of there. I thought this was clever. I didn’t want to expose my troops to unnecessary danger for no benefit. As we were driving away, I got a call from the CO indicating that I was not clever. Why hadn’t I assaulted the town? Well Sir, because that wasn’t the mission. He refused to admit he was in the wrong. My CO is not a very bright guy, but very confident. That is a dangerous combination for an army superior.

The night of the last day of STX lanes, I was given a dismounted c-wire breach mission. The final obstacle we had to clear was at the top of this brutal hill. My platoon was supposed to breach the wire and then occupy the objective on the other side of the wire. I had placed my support by fire and the breach had been initiated when we started receiving IDF from the enemy. The thing about breaching is that once you initiate the process, you don’t stop until either the obstacle is clear or all friendlies are dead. Breaching is a dangerous mission but it’s even more dangerous if you hesitate. In the heat of the moment, I forgot about this full-speed ahead tenet and, upon receiving IDF, directed my platoon back down the hill a couple hundred meters. We received another IDF volley, and again, I sent my Soldiers down the hill another couple hundred meters. I realized pretty quickly that was the tactically incorrect decision. Not to mention, it looked like we were retreating since the only way to run off the breach site was down the hill. One of the cadre came running down the hill screaming at us (more like screaming at me). We then charged back up the hill and completed the breach. The sun was setting and people were exhausted running up and down that hill with radios and other equipment in their assault bags. ENDEX was called and I got strung up in front of the whole company. It was one of the more embarrassing moments of my life. But a good learning experience. I sulked for the rest of the day but was able to recover by the next morning.

The next several days were a blur and frankly, I don’t care to recount much about them. The same old bullshit, running ranges, dealing with logistics, not sleeping enough, ready to go home. It was my first prolonged period of being a PL. Certainly good experience.