The Support Troops

Today was pretty low key. We spent the night on The 3-1 Cav’s F.O.B. and I slept like a brick. Nothing was going to wake me up...except chow.

After chow, we checked out what some of the support troops did around the area. When you hear soldier you think of a man or woman with a gun or in a tank rumbling through the desert. You don’t think of the soldiers filling the generators with fuel so everyone can have electricity or the men and women that repair the vehicles. Or cooking food, or so on. There’s a lot of jobs that might not seem as glorious, but are just as important.

The mechanics in the 3-1 can change a flat tire on a humvee in less than five minutes, I promise, I saw it. I’m embarrassed to say I’ve never changed a tire on any kind of vehicle, but I’m pretty sure if I had to it’d take me at least an hour.

As the sun was setting, Chris and I heard some gunfire at the back gate. When we went to check it out we discovered they were just test firing their weapons. We hung out with the guys back there for awhile and shared a few laughs with them. They were on that gate for six days with only about three hours of rest in between shifts. We could tell they were pretty excited to see some new faces to talk to. The group of soldiers in the picture below is of them.

We’re back at Brigade HQ now. We went from sleeping in a giant empty medic tent at 3-1 to a giant tent full of around 100 soldiers. We don’t have solid plans for tomorrow, so it remains a mystery. Make sure to check back to see what the day brings!