833rd coming closer together

By MATT MILNER Courier staff writer

July 20, 2007 11:55 pm

— FORT McCOY, Wis. — The 833rd Engineer Company has a lot of company at Fort McCoy. Thousands of soldiers are cycling in and out of the fort, heading home, heading to Iraq and to Afghanistan.
But the soldiers from southeast Iowa don’t see most of that. They’re tucked away in a small corner of the fort called FOB Liberty. FOB stands for forward operating base. It’s the kind of base they will use in Iraq.
Large earth berms surround the base. You slow down and weave between barriers to enter. No one gets in without an ID. Inside, rows and rows of sand-colored tents house the soldiers.
It’s not just the FOB layout that makes it seem isolated. Fort McCoy is huge. A sign near the south entrance reads “Main Gate — 7 miles.” Just getting to a training area means a drive of 20 minutes or more.
The soldiers don’t have Internet connections yet. Cell phones work, but finding time to call home isn’t a simple issue.
“It’s been a pretty busy schedule,” said Spc. Jared Wilson. “The training, we’re busy from the time we get up to the time we go to bed.”
Most of the 833rd served in Iraq with the 224th Engineer Battalion. Capt. Ben Lampe, the company’s commanding officer, estimates 60 or 70 percent of the unit deployed in 2004-05.
That works both ways as the unit prepares. The soldiers know a bit about Iraq. They know something about the physical conditions. But that familiarity can breed overconfidence. Lampe warns against being cocky. Things are different. Being cocky is dangerous. It puts your guard down.
The soldiers’ training aims at two goals. One is obvious. The soldiers need to know their mission. They need to know how to handle things. They talk about muscle memory, a term borrowed from sports. It means drilling the same things over and over, so the real thing happens automatically.
Training also changes the group. They must learn to live together, without the personal space they are familiar with from civilian life. The tents have rows of cots. Five feet between spots is a lot.
Morale is a tricky thing to control. The soldiers are upbeat now. They laugh. They tell jokes. It won’t always be that way. There will be days when no one wants to be where they are.
Lampe encourages the soldiers to “bitch up.” That means they should complain sometimes, but in specific ways. Air gripes to soldiers that are the same rank or higher, not to soldiers over whom you have authority. And officers should never, ever complain to enlisted men.
That idea parallels a sign near Lampe’s cot in the command tent. It’s only two lines: “Train your lieutenants. Trust your NCOs.”
No officer or senior enlisted man can be everywhere. The good ones don’t try. They just make sure everyone knows the mission and can take action when warranted.
First aid is a good example. Everyone in the company gets basic first aid training in things like putting on a tourniquet or a bandage. Some get more extensive training on IVs. Getting fluids into a wounded soldier keeps up blood volume and can help prevent shock.
Sgt. Joe Curtis is one of the company’s medics. It means he treats anything.
“I do little things from bumped toes to emergency medicine,” he said. “My responsibility is to be with the guys and do what they do. That means we look for IEDs. That’s what I’m doing. I’m just there in case something goes wrong.”
Curtis knows situations can get away from his control. A major attack can hurt a lot of people. He’s just one medic. So he relies on others to help keep people alive for evacuation.
The IV training is why soldiers talk about “sticks.” Just about everyone gets stuck at some point. It’s not fun having a needle jabbed in by someone who is literally shaking, but practicing here could save a life later. Curtis is proud of how the soldiers are doing.
“Training up here as far as doing IVs has been outstanding. We’re trying to get our CLSs – CLS is combat lifesavers – trained in doing IVs and tourniquets,” he said.
The unit has a break coming up in August. They will come home for a few days. The reaction is always the same when you ask about that. The soldiers’ eyes light up. They start talking faster, almost jabbering in anticipation.
Donations, including a major one from Pella Corp., pay for the return trip. First Sgt. Steve Dreher sees the donations as evidence that people support the soldiers, whatever they may think of the political leaders. He said he heard about donations from a wide swath of states.
“It was not just the community there,” he said. “It was the country.”
Matt Milner can be reached at (641) 683-5359 or via e-mail at mwmilner@mchsi.com