Last Friday I had a wonderful day off, lounging about in shorts reading a book, my only worry that the a/c unit was being resistant. Suddenly, a knock on the door – it is a fellow from the guardhouse – I am to call work. I put on some teva’s and wander out, to be asked “Hey, Sgt. O- needs some company on a charity range shoot tomorrow at Shaiba Logistics Base, wanna go? We’re pretty desperate for a second body.” I mull it over for a few seconds, “Sure, I’ll go” thinking a day trip is cool. Wrong. I hear over the phone, “Great! Pack up, the convoy leaves in two hours!” My response was, er, unprintable.
So I hurry around, pack up an overnight bag, do a systems check on the HMV, fuel her up and then off to meet the convoy. We drive off, with the setting sun for company. The convoy itself is uneventful (thankfully), save for the usual kids waving on the road side, and we pull into camp at dusk
By the time we find our POC, a young Lt. who looks like she should be a sophomore in college, it is dark and I almost run over a 50-gallon drum in the parking lot – the lights on our HMV aren’t the best (that’s my excuse and I’m sticking with it!) – before we reach the visitor accommodations. The Lt. arranges for some tea (I mean “dinner” in American-speak), followed by a trip to the armory to store weapons & ammunition (where we meet some happy Scots who coo all over our M-16s; one of whom at met us at the cookhouse and asked me “’Ow d’ya lie the fod?”) and then we drop off our kit in the visitor barracks, which is a nice, air conditioned room with mattresses and cots.
We follow the Lt. down to the officers & sergeants mess, which is a large open space, filled with comfy chairs and tables, with pictures of the Queen on the wall, a tea kettle, television and ping-pong tables. While we are there a senior officer wanders in and we have a good conversation about Iraq, Tony Blair and public opinion before he goes off to crush his adjutant in “table tennis.” We drink tea and relax for a few hours and discover, among other things, that the Lt. is scheduled to leave in four days. The distressing thing: she arrived in April, after I was mobilized... (sigh) On the other hand, she’s only home for a few months and then off to Spain in a liaison position with the Spanish Army.
After a long night (it was too cold, and I’d had too much caffeine), we met for breakfast at 0730 and ate in, you guessed it, the officers & sergeants galley inside the dining hall. So, like the Navy, but unlike the U.S. Army, the Brits still have separate eating areas for officers, senior enlisted and the rest (although, unlike the Navy, the food is served from the same kitchen). FYI, in the U.S. Army, everybody eats the same food and the last person to eat is the most senior officer – that way, if there’s not enough, it is the officers, not the troops, who go hungry.
We then drive off to the range in our HMV, where we spend the next two hours setting up weapons and ammo tables, with camo nets for shade and we opened up the HMV and a Danish “Africa Korps” jeep for visitors to climb around inside. All the Brits loved the space, and the windows, inside the HMV, since they usually got banged up in their narrow, cramped land-rovers.
The range was inside a sand pit, which was pretty neat but there was not a lick of shade except for a little tiny postage stamp area away from the gun line. We set up a Danish C2 rifle (the Canadian version of the M-16), a little British carbine, a Czech AK-47 and my very own M-16. Sgt. O- used her M-16 to give a safety brief under cover of cammo netting, where the Danes had also set up some cool toys, including a 7.62 mm machine gun (which they wanted to mount on their jeep, drive onto the rifle range and have people fire – but the Brits said no, sadly), a smoke projector and baton-rounds (large, shotgun-shell-sized sponge bullets used for driving off rock throwers).
We started about 10:30, with the international soldiers (me, a Dane and a Czech) paired with a British officer (if needed for translation) at each rifle station. Yes, if you can believe it, I was sworn in and blessed as a range safety officer. The idea was that people would pay $5 (which went to a military charity) and get to shoot unusual weapons. My M-16 was the American rifle, so I got to stand over the shooters and make sure they didn’t do anything stupid.
Turned out that most of the non-infantry at the base (clerks, logistics guys, office workers) showed up for the shoot. For many, it was the first time on the rifle range for a loooong time, and it showed. There were people holding the M-16 by the magazine or over the top of the barrel, and almost everyone flicked the safety off with their wrong hand. Not a big deal, but we amused ourselves by watching what people did wrong before gently correcting them. There were two guys who clearly hadn’t been out in the field, maybe ever, as their helmets kept slipping down over their eyes. Well, it amused the Sgt. Major who was running the range, which was better than him getting angry and yelling “fookin’ inbreds!” whenever somebody bollocked’ up the line.
Stopped for a bag lunch of frozen sausage sandwiches (yum...) and then pushed through the afternoon crowd, with Sgt. O- having to periodically run out and use her Sgt.-voice on the privates who kept starting the HMV (even though we had the steering wheel locked… kids today, sigh). By the afternoon my rifle was hot, having fired over 500 rounds and sitting out in the blazing sun, so in addition to giving shooting pointers (!), I was also warning people about the hot metal.
Luckily we got through the last crowd without too much trouble, and that’s when Sgt. O- got a touch of heat stroke, so I’m rushing around getting ice and the a/c running in the HMV to keep her cool before running off (selfish me) to get some time on the gun range. They let us fire off about 20-40 rounds per rifle (instead of the normal 5-rounds), which was really cool with the Danish bipod-mounted crew weapon. And they had awesome scopes (instead of the plain iron sights on my M-16), which made them a joy to shoot. After we all blasted off a magazine or two, our eyes began to water from all the burnt powder. I glanced at the female Lt. and flashed on an article I’d seen in a scholarly journal titled “I love the smell of cordite in your hair: Women in the Anti-Aircraft Corps, 1939-45” or some such. I seem to be developing a thing for women with rifles and body armor. Oops, over sharing...
After we clean up the range, I get everything loaded up in the HMV and we chill for an hour before our convoy home, which passes without incident. We are back by 1900, in time for chow, a shower and a night of pool with the boys. A good but tiring day.
And I am sunburned to a crisp, and all from light reflecting off the ground up into my face...
Fair Winds and Following Sands!
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