Monday, March 5, 2001

By Jon R. Anderson
Stars and Stripes

Jon R. Anderson / Stars and Stripes Even truck drivers get high-speed combat training while deployed to Kuwait. These two soldiers had to respond to an "ambush" while driving toward the Iraqi border.

NEAR THE IRAQI BORDER, Kuwait — The long supply convoy stretches across the desert like a modern day camel train, kicking up a cloud of dust in its wake as it moves towards the Iraqi border.

A blast in front of them signals the ambush. Within seconds, dozens of troops are leaping out of their trucks, bounding into positions and crawling up tall, tan dunes.

Smoke grenades cover the soldiers as they move. Loud artillery blasts explode all around them.

The crack and zing of live ammunition is heard echoing across the desert floor, M-16 rifles punctuating the drum roll of M-240 machine guns and the roar of AT-4 anti-tank rockets.

Just another typical day of training in Kuwait. And this is just the truck drivers.

"We would never be able to do this kind of training back at Fort Hood," says Capt. Clay Padgett, the headquarters company commander for the contingent of 1st Cavalry Division soldiers now in Kuwait. "We are truly blessed here."

For troops who joined the Army for tough, realistic combat training, this is a soldier’s paradise, he says.

Wide-open ranges that stretch as far as the eye can see, a virtually bottomless supply of fuel and ammunition, and few of the restrictions seen at training centers in the United States and Germany, all add up to make duty in the desert some of the best around for gunslingers.

‘Harder, faster, fiercer’

The Army keeps one task force in Kuwait at all times, with new units rotating in every four months.

At the strategic level, the presence is designed to send a message to Saddam Hussein that the United States remains as serious about the protection of Kuwait and its oil wells as it did 10 years ago when U.S. troops led the international coalition to liberate the country.

For the troops who come to Kuwait, however, it is as much about hard-core training as it is any political statement. And that training begins as soon as they hit the ground.

Like some massive combat rental car lot, soldiers draw nearly all of thei equipment at a sprawling warehouse complex just north of Kuwait City called Camp Doha.

With everything from tanks and howitzers to food and water coolers, Doha has enough gear to outfit an entire brigade.

Within five hours of landing, units have loaded up and are on their way out the gate and into the desert.

Taking on the rest of their equipment — including a full combat load of ammunition — as they approach the Iraqi border, the pace is furious and non-stop.

"The training here is harder, faster and fiercer than I have seen anywhere else in the Army," says Sgt. Chad Izworski, a tank gunner and veteran of both the National Training Center in California and the Combat Maneuver Training Center (CMTC) in Germany.

"The terrain sucks in Germany," he says, punctuating the comment with a spit of chewing tobacco into a white Styrofoam cup. "CMTC is just too small."

Kuwait, he says, "is a tanker’s dream. The desert is wide open. Here, we are free to roam."

Unlimited resources

"Our biggest challenge at Fort Hood is competition for space." says Lt. Col. J.B. Burton, who commands the 1,200 troops in Kuwait that make up Task Force 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, known among themselves as the "Black Knights."

With two divisions competing for limited training areas at Fort Hood, just getting onto a range can seem like a bigger fight than any actual war games.

In Germany, the problem is worse, with two divisions and an even smaller training area at the CMTC for units to vie over.

In Kuwait, Burton says, "we’re the only ones here. I can take the whole task force out and do whatever I want, whenever I want. We’re only limited by our imagination."

"The resourcing here is tremendous," he says.

In their fourth month in Kuwait, most drivers will have clocked about 700 miles on their vehicles.

Back at Fort Hood, the average is about 600 miles per vehicle for an entire year.

With a tight U.S. defense budget, it’s been the deep pockets of the Kuwaitis that have made training so wide open.

"The Kuwaitis take very good care of us," says Col. David Lamm, the commander of all Army forces in Kuwait.

The United States provides the actual equipment and the soldiers, and the Kuwaitis pay for everything else. That includes everything from fuel and ammunition, to parts and other supplies, Lamm said.

Combined arms

For soldiers like 1st Lt. Jason Albright, it all boils down to getting and doing the kind of training he joined the Army for.

An artilleryman assigned to support tank units at Fort Hood, Albright said he rarely even saw tankers, much less trained with them.

"Here, I’m with them 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And we do things here you’d never see at Fort Hood."

Just recently, for example, he called in new 155 mm Copperhead laser-guided artillery rounds during a live-fire exercise.

"We can’t even shoot those at Fort Hood," he says.

It’s the fact that artillery and tankers, infantry and engineers can all train together that has many soldiers excited.

"At Fort Hood, I rarely even see tanks, but here the entire focus is on combined arms," Albright said.

The focus is also on the very real potential for combat.

Back with the truck drivers, task force commander Burton is running through an after-action critique of the live-fire drill.

"If this ambush had been real, even in the middle of the night, do you think you could have survived?" asks Burton.

"The answer is yes, but in everything you do, you need to treat it like it’s real. The enemy is out there ready to put lead into your body cavity. Make that poor dumb bastard die for his country instead."

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