DRASH-talking about Safety

My fellow TOC-rats and I are learning how to set up, tear down, heat and cool, install lights and wire for sound our spiffy new tent system. I still haven't found a price tag on the equipment, but we all assume it's in the hundreds of thousands per tent. Each tent comes with its own electrical power generator and Environmental Control Unit (E.C.U.).

The tents are "DRASH" brand. The company's website boasts that its products are "used in the harshest environments by the toughest warfighters." One of my buddies in supply says, however, "You realize, we'll never use this stuff downrange. It's just a big circus tent for an infantry fashion show."

Spring is coming, but before the gardens, must come the fighting--and the hook-and-loop fastener strips. We're working in a sandy, relatively flat motorpool area, and the saturated ground is both the color and consistency of gritty nougat, so tent stakes and grounding rods are easy to sink. The tents expand and contract like those toy Hoberman Spheres.

Unfortunately, in just three rainy, cold, and miserable days, I've pretty much been able to completely alienate three contract instructors--as well as a couple of my classmates. Not by questioning the DRASH product, but by trying to understand the trainers' creative approach to safety.

My first clue should've been when early in the class, when one instructor said something like, "Of course, all these metal tent stakes are new and painted, so they'll probably be flaking off a lot when you hammer them. Everybody brought eye-protection, right?" No one responded affirmatively. "Well, I guess the guys who already wear glasses can use the sledgehammers."

On behalf of tough-but-myopic "warfighters" everywhere ... wrong answer.

I used to sell lawn mowers in high school. Every year, we'd read between the lines of the owner's manuals, to figure out who had gotten sued for customers' acts of stupidity. One of my personal favorites? "Warning: Do not pick up lawnmower for use as a hedge trimmer." Back when automatic engine-shutoffs were coming into the lawnmower market, salespeople got in trouble for even suggesting to customers how to override the safety features.

I learned my lesson: Never, ever, ever tell the customer NOT to follow the manual. That gets people hurt. And sued.

Needless to say, I'm already ears-up after the casual "I just said that you should use eye-protection, but now I'm going to look the other way" moment. That's when another instructor is going through the "standard warning labels" and what they mean: "Danger," "Warning," "Caution" and "Note" all have defined levels of urgency. Who knew?

Somehow, the subject of hearing-protection comes up, and I hear another instructor interrupt the one giving the class. He says something like, "These warnings are standard, but they really don't apply to the equipment you'll be using." So, I ask the question: The labels and the manuals that you've just given us are wrong? Yes, he says, and we're going to request a change to the manual, but the government never listens to us. The hearing-protection requirement, he says, is only for people who are going to be around the equipment for extended periods of time.

From about that point forward, I go into active-pinging mode as "Sergeant Safety." Something is rotten in DRASH-land. The instructors label me as a problem child, and single me out from the herd.

The generators used with the system are Tactical Quiet Generators (T.Q.G.). That means they've been sound-proofed down to 70 decibel. When the panels are all closed, you can actually hear someone else talk to you over the sound of the generator. They're great stuff, but they still require hearing protection to be used--particularly when you're opening and closing the sound-proofed doors.

The manuals we've been issued for the tent class even say:

WARNING: To prevent noise-induced hearing loss, always wear hearing protection when within 10 feet of the TMSS control panel while the generator is running.

That's "always," Tex. Not "only when you're going to be around the generator for extended periods of time." Oh, and don't try to tell me that I don't understand TQGs, that they're "new." They've been around in the Army since 1989. My old Iowa Army National Guard unit first fielded them in 1995.

Later, I notice two signs on the generators themselves:

CAUTION: While performing maintenances with engine running wear approved hearing protection.

WARNING: Do not remove [panels] during operation.

Just prior to the practical exercise, all the soundproofed panels are removed from each of the generators, in order to show off their inner workings. Then, during the "test" itself, two student-groups out of three (or four) actually start their generators up, with instructor assistance and supervision.

No one is wearing hearing protection. (Not even the instructors, so at least they practice what they unwisely teach.) Without the panels in place, the generator is a lot louder than 70 decibels.

Can they hear me now?

Now I Know My ABCS

In late February, I pulled two weeks in snowy Pennsylvania, where I learned the ins-and-outs (and inputs-and-outputs) among Army Battle Command Systems (A.B.C.S.)--the "system of systems" that today's Army uses to command and control its specialty functions.

In our new digital Tactical Operations Centers (TOC), soldiers like me no longer track the battle using radios and maps and pushpin flags. Instead, we practically play video games. There's a computer system for controlling artillery fires, and one for monitoring logistics and personnel statuses. There's one for drawing maps and overlays. There's one for analyzing terrain, and another for filtering through reports of enemy activity. There's even one for updating the weather forecast, and one for tracking aircraft moving through the area.

There are related systems, too, including "Blue Force Tracker" (B.F.T.)--which shows the pretty-close-to-current locations of friendly vehicles--and "Command Post of the Future" (CPOF), which commanders use to "visualize the battlefield." The latter acronym is pronounced "see-poff," and invites the question: "If we have a 'Command Post of the Future' in our possession, isn't it really more like a 'Command Post of the Present?'")

All of these TOC systems talk with each other in different ways, so that everyone on the battlefield is reacting to the same events at relatively the same times. That "Fog of War" you always hear about? We're throwing a lot of money, mental power, and technology to see through those clouds of uncertainty.

Near as I can tell, we're still years away from the Army network achieving self-awareness. That's more the stuff of science fiction, like Skynet from "The Terminator," or Colossus from "The Forbin Project." The ABCS suite seems to be a kludged-together constellation of separately developed machines, which is now expected to work as one. I'm not an expert troubleshooter yet, but I bet it's going to be like trying to get a humidifier and a dehumidifier to work in the same room together. Oh, and both of them are armed. With mops. And lasers.

Still, whenever you can paint a more accurate picture for commanders--where our troops are, where the enemy is likely to be, how we can best achieve the mission--we fight better, more efficiently, and more safely. Computers can help with that, as long as we lowly humans recognize their limitations. We created them, after all, in our own limited frames of reference.

Even the best computer system--or system of systems--can still fall prey to user-input error. Garbage in, garbage out.

What's my job? It's either to sort through the garbage, or to make sure that the compactor works really, really well.

The Whale in the Room

Call me "Sherpa."

I've been meaning to take a "tactical pause," in which to bring new readers up to speed, and to reiterate the known-knowns and the known-unknowns for those who have been reading longer than that. There's no time like the present, particularly given the weirdness that was my March drill weekend. To tell you about that, however, I'm going to have to reveal a little more of my reality.

My psuedo-name is Charlie Sherpa. I use a pseudonym because I'm waiting for my unit, my state, and my Army to make up their minds about what is appropriate for soldiers to do, Internet-wise. 'Nuff said on that for now, for fear of getting up on my iSoapbox.

I've been an Iowa Army National Guard soldier for nearly 20 years, and wore a uniform a few years before that. I'm Army-trained in communications, which, even back in my pre-Internet past, included operated everything from radios to computers to photocopiers. I've served my community in times of flood and tornado and blizzard, and served my country by deploying to southwestern Asia.

I currently drill with the Headquarters Company of 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division, located in Boone, Iowa, pop. 13,000. Since August 2010, the entire brigade--some 3,500 soldiers--has been alerted for a late-summer-2010 deployment to Afghanistan. Other units that don't wear the Red Bull patch have also been alerted, but that's another post.

Fair warning: Just because I'm in the same unit as the Brassy Big Wigs doesn't mean that I've got some sort of inside track or scoop or angle. I usually just try to keep my head down and focus on doing my job. In future posts, as I begin to tell you more about that job, it would become painfully obvious that I was working in a headquarters organization of some sort. All I'd have to do is describe some of the computer systems that we use, for example, or talk about our topsy-top-heavy officer-to-soldier ratio, or complain about being tasked to fix the broken espresso machine in the Tactical Operations Center (TOC), and you'd be on to me.

Some soldiers and veterans, upon learning that I word in a headquarters, might automatically label me a "FOBbit," a "REMF" (that's "rear-echelon mother f-----"), or a "TOC-rat." These are derogatory, demeaning terms, meant to demoralize those of us with the stamina, mental focus, and bladder discipline required to give the warfighter our full attention, the instant he calls for artillery fire, Close Air Support (CAS), or more ammunition. We are ... the Help Desk of the Apocalypse.

I told you that story so that I could tell you this one:

The brigade commander pulled the entire Headquarters Company into a room last weekend, and did a great job of pushing out information about what he knows and doesn't know, and even what his best-guesses are, regarding our pending deployment. And, even though he told people it would be OK to repeat anything discussed in that meeting, I think that, given my recent musing and ranting on OPSEC topics, I'll summarize and even sanitize it a little more here:

• Our brigade will probably get a mobilization order within weeks or months, which will set a relatively concrete "mobilization day." At "M-day," a unit goes from state to federal control. The "12-months boots on ground" maximum-time for National Guard deployment actually begins on M-day. The brigade commander said that, since the rule was put in place, not one unit has been extended beyond that cap. (That's a big deal, particular for those "Red Bull" soldiers and families that deployed with 1st BCT, 34th Infantry Division in 2005-07: 16 months in country; 22 months total.)
• Following M-day, our brigade would spend between 30 to 60 days at a "mobilization station"--an active-Army or larger National-Guard/Reserve post. During this time, soldiers who had not yet been tested on their "common skills"--the ones that each soldier must know how to perform, regardless of rank or function--would be tested. We'd also train collectively--each of us in our specialty functions, working together as a team.
• The brigade would move from mobilization station to a national-level training center, at which all our units would participate in a large-scale exercise simulating some of the missions we'd expect to perform downrange.
• The brigade would then move downrange, perform its mission, and return home not later than 12 months from M-day.

A couple of buddies were joking that the deployment has seemingly already begun, given the number of weekends we've been working. (A lot of us are now on temporary active-duty, and are in uniform 7-days-a-week.) That same joke wasn't quite as funny when Household-6 observed the same: I won't have had any time off from mid-February to April 1, and she's both worried about me and feeling a little stretched herself. Last weekend, the brigade commander said that we should all focus on our families right now, and focus on getting ourselves physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually ready for deployment.

If only we had the time.