Is this a Dude Ranch, or a Forward Operating Base?

Back in 2012, I wrote a post comparing and contrasting "Summer Camp"—what old citizen-soldiers in the National Guard still jokingly call annual military training—with "summer camping."

Recently, the Sherpa clan rounded up the extended family for a week's vacation in southeastern Arizona. Soon after getting boots on ground—faster than you can say "Huachuca"—I began to notice potential comparisons between daily life on a Dude Ranch, and that of living on a Forward Operating Base ("FOB") downrange.

In other words, I felt right at home.

Here are a few of my notes:

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LOCAL EATERIES

• If you are eating regularly in a "chow hall," you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If you are eating regularly in a "dining facility," you are on a FOB.

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INDIGINOUS FAUNA

• If you are on constant lookout for rattlesnakes, you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If you are on constant lookout for camel spiders, you are on a FOB.

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REQUIRED HEAD GEAR

• If you observe people who are playing cowboy wearing white Stetsons, you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If you observe people who are playing cowboy wearing black Stetsons, you are on a FOB.

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LITTLE PINK HOUSES

• If you are living in a pink building and shooting at tin cans, you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If you are working in a pink building and living in a tin can while other people shoot at you, you are on a FOB.

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BARREL ROLES

• If "clearing barrel" means executing a successful maneuver on horseback, you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If "clearing barrel" means a safety device into which you pull a trigger, you are on a FOB.

• Bonus tip: If "Trigger" is your horse, you are on a Dude Range.

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WATER POINTS

• If drinking water is plentifully supplied in plastic bottles, you could be on either a Dude Ranch or a FOB ...

• If the plastic bottles are re-supplied daily by Housekeeping to your room's refrigerator, you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If the plastic bottles are stored in bulk and located under a plywood lean-to near a corner of your building's exterior, you are on a FOB.

• Bonus tip: If there is an ice machine where those bulk plastic water bottles would be located on a FOB, you are on a Dude Ranch.

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FRIENDLY SKIES

• If there are A-10s flying overhead, you could be on either a Dude Ranch or a FOB ...

• If the A-10s sound friendly and outgoing, you are on a Dude Ranch.

• If the A-10s sound angry, you are on a FOB.

Down and Out at the Oak Leaf Lounge

During the second half of my Afghan journey, I've been staging out of Bagram Airfield ("BAF"), while crashing out in style. Living quarters are "Re-Locatable Buildings" (R.L.B.)--semi-trailer-sized metal containers that have been stacked two high and 14 wide, and bolted together. Complete with corrugated steel sunshades and sandbag-bunker adjacent, the exterior aesthetic is something close to "20th century American penitentiary."

Each "block" has a central latrine on each level: six sinks, four shower stalls, two urinals and two toilets.

The floors of each "hootch" are wood-look sheet vinyl, and the walls are finished in light-colored paneling. There's one door and one window for each 20-by-20-foot apartment ("compartment"?), and bunk beds enough for up to six or eight soldiers. In the area in which I'm staying, most seem to house three or four soldiers.

I've stayed a couple of nights with some characters with whom Red Bull Rising readers may already be somewhat acquainted: An Army lawyer, a public affairs guy, and The Postman--a combat engineer who does construction back in the world, so we always have something to talk about. Their hootch--nicknamed the "Oak Leaf Lounge"--has been carved into three smaller living spaces. Stand at the center of the compartment, take one step at any diagonal, and you'd be in someone else's "room."

Each guy has their own wall locker and bunk bed. The lower one is for sleeping, the upper for storage. Had I deployed with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division, this is most likely the same type of living situation in which I would have spent my 9 months in country.

The entry has been turned into something akin to a mud room, foyer, and family room. Someone took the doors off of a wall locker, and built from its carcass a combination bookshelf, entertainment center, and pantry. There are also three or four folding chairs, a dorm-style refrigerator filled with pop and bottled water, and a small flat-screen television.

Prior to deployment, back at Camp Ripley, Minn., the guys were plotting and plodding their collective way through entire DVD collections of "The Sopranos." At the time, we joked that it was good counterinsurgency ("COIN") training--after all, what's a mafia story but a narrative of tribal leaders, criminals, and blood ties? During their months here in country, they've branched out, enthusiastically taking on series such as "Band of Brothers," "Rome," "Mad Men," and "Spartacus." Manly men, watching manly things. At the Oak Leaf Lounge.

Sounds almost like an Army-sanctioned gentlemen's club, doesn't it? Make sure to stay for the burka show. Lots of "T and A."

(That's "Toes and Ankles," by the way.)

More importantly, the hootch's name appears on the painted wooden plaque The Postman's wife had made and sent over for his birthday. Apparently, the Postman had once mentioned to his wife the original "Oak Leaf Lounge" after the unit's National Training Center (N.T.C.) rotation back in September. That "lounge" featured a cobbled-together pile of van seats, a broken sleeping cot, and a table of some sort, tucked away in the corner of a mass sleeping tent on FOB Warrior. A snarky public affairs soldier had lobbed the label in passing, like some sort of joke-grenade. But the name stuck.

"It's the best thing that anybody ever sent me," says The Postman. "The other guys wanted their own made, too."

It's become something of a tradition for visitors to have their pictures taken with the sign, and the resulting images are also proudly displayed. It's not exactly Afghanistan's answer to the World's Largest Ball of Twine, but it ranks up there on the short list of Tourist Traps on BAF. Right up there with the "Pink Palace" headquarters building (that's another story), the Post Exchange, the Green Beans coffee shop, and the not-one-but-two Pizza Huts.

This week, the nightly floor show at the Oak Leaf Lounge included viewings of gladiatorial programs like the "Spartacus" series. Lots of blood and gore and orgies--entertainment for the whole family.

The first night I crashed on their floor, the guys caught three rodents with the peanut-buttered mousetraps they set out around the perimeter of their hootch. Apparently, I'm like the Pied Piper of Bagram--a mouse magnet, a rodent whisperer. I'm just glad someone didn't slip me a Mickey. Especially after I made the "I ... am ... 'Sparta-mouse'" joke a couple-hundred times.

Borrowing a line from the episode we'd just watched: "It was a great spectacle of blood." Followed, of course, by arguments about whose turn it was to dispose of the losers and to reset the traps.

War is heck: Living in boxes, fighting the mice. Just another day in paradise ...

Just another night at the Oak Leaf Lounge.

Polly's Dad Got Shooted

"Polly's Dad was in the Army, and he got shooted," Lena says casually from the backseat. I've just picked the kids up from school. Household-6 is going out with a friend tonight, and I'm in charge of pick-up and dinner. It is a bitterly cold and windy day, the roads are still slick from a day-and-a-half of snowfall, and the last of the day's light hangs in the air like icicles.

Lena's words are sometimes like that, too--just solid enough to grab and hold. Touch them wrong, however, and they'll shatter. I move the car forward, cautiously.

First rule of working in the Tactical Operations Center ("TOC"): "The first report is always wrong. Except when it isn't."

My family lives in a small suburb of what the local TV anchors like to call the Des Moines "metro." (By the way, it's locally pronounced "duh-MOY-en." The "s" is silent. So is the other one.) More than 550,000 people live in the 5-county area.

There are more than 3,000 National Guard soldiers--most from the Midwest, and most from Iowa--currently deployed to Afghanistan with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division. If they were all put together in the same place, they'd rival the size of some towns that still dot the agri-industrialized landscape of 21st century Iowa, enclaves of good people and simpler times.

There is no active-duty Army post in the state of Iowa, however, and there is no single geographic concentration of units, families, and training areas that the Red Bull calls home. There is no commissary, or daycare, or post exchange (P.X.) to which everyone goes. There are no dry cleaners, tattoo parlors, package liquor and pay-day loan shops located just outside the main gate.

The largest single military activity in the state is Camp Dodge, in the Des Moines suburb of Johnston.

The state of Iowa is itself like a small town, however. If you don't know somebody, you might know somebody who does. Even if we don't all wear the same uniform, or live and work in the same places.

So when my kindergartner starts casually talking about soldiers and shooting, I go into a parental form of tactical questioning: "Really, when did this happen? ... Why did she tell you that? ... Was she laughing or crying when she said that? ... What is Polly's last name?"

Driving home, trying to figure out what my 6-year-old is thinking or saying, other potential connections are also simultaneously popping up on my mental dashboard. Some of it is signal, most of it is noise:

• A Red Bull soldier was recently injured by an Improvised Explosive Device (I.E.D.) in Laghman Province. I ask myself: Is there a connection?

• Earlier this week, a member of a Missouri National Guard's Agri-Business Development Team (A.D.T.) was killed by an IED in Nangahar Province. That's not the Iowa ADT, nor is it Red Bull territory, but is there a connection?

• Lena has recently been invited to a "military" themed birthday party at a local museum. The birthday boy chose the theme in honor of his Navy veteran dad, who last year committed suicide with a gun. I don't know whether his actions were service-related, and it really doesn't matter. I do know that, while picking up my kids in warmer times, I experienced this boy's little sister announcing to me, to her playground friends, to anyone she encountered: "My daddy shot himself. He's with Jesus now." Is there a connection?

I'm not just spinning my mental wheels for kicks-and-giggles, of course. I'm attempting to figure out if my daughter is upset, or making unwanted or unnecessary associations. After all, I know she still thinks of Daddy as "being in the Army," we obviously have family friends currently in harm's way, and she seems to me overly attentive to TV pictures of tanks and soldiers on those rare occasions they infiltrate our family room. "Daddy, is that show about death?"

Naturally, I also want to know if Polly and her family is somehow in distress.

Of course, it could all be fairy tales and pixie dust. I remember the story-telling games of my own youth, with each kid one-upping each other until we were each descended from astronauts, famous inventors, and Presidents of the United States. And I remember the illogical results of any game of "telephone," in which a given narrative melts and mutates over the course of many re-tellings. It's fun at parties, but maddening to unravel as a parent.

All this is on my mind as I drive down the road, maintaining speed and distance. If there is something to the story, I don't want to react or overreact. I don't want to telegraph my background concerns about the health and welfare of 3,000 of my fellow Midwesterners into spooking the kids. I don't want to drive into a ditch, and I don't want to break the icicle.

Because the first report is always wrong. Except when it isn't.

Slideshow: 10 Views of Life on the FOB

And now for something a little different! In order to further illustrate some of yesterday's descriptions, below are 10 photos of FOB Denver, depicting how many soldiers of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division spent some of their time in "The Box" at the National Training Center (N.T.C.). Captions appear below each photograph.

This is a close-up of a "sleep shade," each of which sleeps up to 150 soldiers. The rigid, sprayed-on foam-insulation looks like nougat. I love how the irregular patterns of the walls mimic the footprints surrounding the tents.

Civilian workers erect an additional tent for use as temporary office space for the brigade headquarters. The project took about a day, and was rumored to cost $17,000 U.S. in labor and tent-rental. (Thanks, U.S. taxpayers!) Where else would you use such a thing? A similar tent on another FOB had symbols from the Vancouver 2010 Olympics etched into its glass doors!

Soldiers were fed on an "A-MRE-A" ration-cycle. In other words, a hot "A-ration" breakfast, a "Meal, Ready-to-Eat" (M.R.E.) lunch, and another hot "A-ration" dinner. Contractors prepared and served the hot meals on the FOBs, and units came up with different "carry-out" strategies to serve hot meals at smaller sites. The pancakes weren't gray, by the way--they were blueberry!

This isn't FOB Denver, it's actually FOB King--home of the 334th Brigade Support Battalion, among others! A couple of the larger FOBs had these semi-trailers that dispensed hot and cold beverages. Just make your selection and pull the lever. (Watch out for the hot stuff, however--I managed to give myself second-degree burns while making my instant Starbucks Via coffee one morning!) As I traveled to some other FOBs, I personally helped start the rumor that this truck was actually an industrial-sized milkshake machine. Soldiers love complaining about how one FOB is so much better than another ...

"The approach will not be easy. You are required to maneuver straight down this trench and skim the surface to this point. The target area is only two meters wide. It's a small thermal exhaust port, right below the main port. The shaft leads directly to the reactor system. A precise hit will start a chain reaction which should destroy the station. Only a precise hit will set off a chain reaction. The shaft is ray-shielded, so you'll have to use proton torpedoes." These are either the secret plans to the Death Star, or the layout for the second-floor of the "Igloo"--the brigade Tactical Operations Center (TOC). You make the call!

The brigade "Igloo" exterior, during daylight hours. Back when I was an Army communications guy, we had 100-meter-tall antennas to get over the hill. In today's "work smarter, not harder" Army, we do all the work on the ground, then scissor-lift the antenna into position!

The terrain surrounding the FOB consisted of sand and more sand, punctuated with a little sagebrush.

Under generator-powered spotlights each morning, soldiers brushed their teeth and shaved in long trough-like sinks. Next to the sinks were semi-trailers full of shower facilities--locker rooms on wheels!

There were two semi-trailers full of washers and dryers on FOB Denver. Open 24 hours a day!

A typical bunk area inside the sleep shades. Troops gained a little elbow room by stashing their gear underneath their cots. It was cool enough at night (plus the tents were air-conditioned) that most soldiers would sleep either with a light sleeping bag or poncho liner. Check out my buddy's old-school pin-up calendar! All the comforts of home!

Walking the TOC

FORT IRWIN, Calif., Sept. 24--The 2nd Brigade Combat Team (B.C.T.), 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division headquarters stumbles into Forward Operating Base (FOB) Denver, and immediately starts unloading the vehicles and setting up the Tactical Operations Center (T.O.C.). The TOC itself--the nerve center for the more than 3,000 troops comprising seven battalions of mostly Iowa and Nebraska National Guard personnel--is located in the "igloo," a brand-new, two-story, circular building that looks like something straight out of Star Wars.

No, not the Death Star. Instead, you know the scene in which the young, restless, and whiney Luke Skywalker looks across the sands of Tatooine under two setting suns, while John Williams' orchestral score swells up? I'm pretty sure that FOB Denver is in the background.

"You know, that little droid is going to cause me a lot of trouble ..."

Moving into the FOB is chaos, but it is a familiar kind of chaos. In the darkness, soldiers try to figure where they're going to be sleeping later that night, provided anyone gets any sleep. The occasional spotlight lights the way to the tents.

From where we park the Humvee to the TOC is approximately 200 meters. Sleeping quarters for officers--majors, lieutenant colonels, colonels--are located nearby the TOC. The trailers, built for four people, sleep eight or nine majors each. Rank has its privileges, apparently, particularly if you like sleeping really, really close to your buddies. Sleeping quarters for everyone else are another 500 meters across the dunes, in massive foam-insulated tents capable of sleeping about 150 soldiers. There is plenty of elbow room, as well as room for other parts of one's body.

The brigade headquarters company and portions of the 2/34th Brigade Special Troops Battalion (B.S.T.B.) divvy up space in only one of these massive "sleep shades. The term is an apparent holdover from when conditions at the National Training Center (N.T.C.) were so rustic, the tents didn't even have walls.

There's some talk and movement toward keeping squad, section, or shift integrity--grouping together the soldiers that work together in the same places and times. That way, day-shifters won't wake up the night-shifters as much, and vice versa. In turns out not to matter much, however. The rushing sound of an industrial air-conditioner masks the usual snoring and banging around. Signs posted on the outside of the tents, warning that the facilities are for sleeping only and to take your business activities elsewhere, also help.

The smart soldiers quickly figure out that the electrical outlets are located on the support columns around the perimeter of the tents, so the layout of the cots develops more organically than the traditional "dress-right-dress" of traditional bivouac sites. When it comes to recharging cameras and bootleg iPods, it's strictly "first come, first served."

There are eight or nine other sleep tents, lined up in two neat rows. There's one for contractors and role players. One for female soldiers from our unit. One for the caterers who will serve the meals in our chow halls.

The dining facilities are another 200 meters past the sleep tent.

For those of you playing along at home, that means the total distance from Humvee to cot to hot meal is approximately one kilometer. Along the way, one passes clusters of portable toilets, hand wash stations, and 500-gallon trailers called "water buffaloes," from which soldiers will refill their canteens and CamelBaks. There are also some semi-trailers containing shower and laundry facilities.

Over the course of the next two weeks, soldiers will repeatedly observe that nothing on the FOB is convenient, but everything is certainly within walking distance.

What's in 'The Box'?

Fort Irwin, Calif., September 2010: Upon arrival to Fort Irwin, soldiers spend a few days getting ready to go into "The Box." During their time in The Box, soldiers are forbidden to use cell phones and wireless Internet connections. Some units go to the extreme of confiscating all such devices, down to soldiers' MP3 players.

Why? Because you can't fight Bad Guys in Burqas while listening to Sir Mix-a-Lot's "Baby Got Back."

Soldiers are also denied energy drinks. Fort Irwin trainers are so serious about avoiding dehydration that the convenience stores on post won't sell Monster or Rockstar or Red Bull to visiting "rotational" soldiers. And, during the Red Bull's rotation, they are also denied access to the gut-trucks, roach-coaches, and ice-cream wagons that typically follow soldiers around the training area, like camp-followers of old.

The "no-gut-truck" rule is somewhat self-inflicted, an edict from the Red Bull command team. The Iowa soldiers grumble a little about it, but those same Fort Irwin trainers spouting opinions such as "Energy Drinks Kill"? They kick the complaints up to a high whine. "You know, you're going to have that stuff available over at some of the FOBs in country," one says. "And, these are business owners. This is their bread-and-butter."

Once soldiers enter into The Box, everything counts. The first week in The Box consists of various "situational training exercises," or "S.T.X." Units are presented specific problems and challenges, like "patrol a village" or "recover a disabled vehicle." The second week is "free play."

As in real life, events build on each other. Make friends with the villagers in the first week, and they might tell you some good stuff in the second. Break things and alienate people, and they might shoot at you instead.

It's real enough, down to the food served in the village cafe. Rumor has it, if you want to eat with the locals, you can actually eat with the locals. They're grilling burgers.

Unless they're naked in the shower or sleeping in their cots, soldiers in The Box wear Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement ("MILES") gear--the Army version of Laser Tag.

MILES gear consists of a harness worn like a shoulder-holster, a ring-shaped "halo" that encircles the Advanced Combat Helmet (A.C.H.), and a small box that affixes to the barrel of the M-4 rifle. Upon sensing when a blank-round is fired from the weapon, the latter emits an invisible beam of light. If such a beam hits another soldier's MILES harness or halo, the MILES gear will electronically chirp (for a near-hit) or sound an irritatingly constant high-pitched tone (for a kill).

In a MILES gear universe, death sounds not like a bell, but like a French Fry machine. It beeps for thee.

Once you've been "killed," only a combat-trainer referee can turn off the noise. To do so, he or she uses a bright-blue toy called a "God gun." Blue is the color typical of any Army device used for training; a blue land mine, for example, is just like the real thing, except it won't explode.

The National Training Center is often compared to a Hollywood movie set. (An NTC commander once described it as "an interactive, combat-focused Broadway play.") There was a 2008 documentary about how NTC simulates Iraq, and, since then, the NTC staff has worked hard to make the environment applicable to Afghanistan, too. The smells, the land, the sounds, the languages are as close as you can get without being there. Some veterans of previous deployments say that, if you wake up enough mornings in The Box, you might have to think real hard about where you are.

Older soldiers might compare NTC to something similar to the science-fiction environment of "Westworld." Younger soldiers might compare the experience to an open-narrative, "sandbox"-style videogame. As frosting on the science-fiction cake, all generations will recognize that some of the scenarios are simply not meant to be won.

In other words, NTC is Disney World, the Holodeck, and Grand Theft Auto all rolled into one. You come here, and you're getting ready for the real deal. It's like getting called from the minors, up to the Big Show.

It's September. It's 100-plus degrees Fahrenheit nearly every day. The troops have been mobilized for nearly two months. After The Box, at least one battalion will leave directly for Afghanistan.

The Red Bull came to play. Start the game.

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Want to see a glimpse of action in The Box? Click here for a recent text-and-video report from the KCRG-TV9/Cedar Rapids Gazette regarding the "worst-day in Afghanistan" scenario faced by many Red Bull soldiers in September: "Afghanistan Simuluation Prepares Iowa National Guard Soldiers for War."

Welcome to Shelbistan!

The last time I was in Camp Shelby, Miss., I was brand-spanking new to the Iowa Army National Guard. I was part of an entire battalion of communications soldiers who had descended up on this place like locusts, wave after wave after wave.

There wasn't much physical damage that was left to be done to the post, of course, because Hurricane Andrew had recently blown through the American South, and the post was being used as emergency housing. Many of the cinder-block buildings were so moldy and wet, soldiers asked whether the hurricane had actually passed over this part of Mississippi. We preferred living and working in our tents.

In those days, units still got a 24-hour pass during their 2-week Annual Training periods. One "Retention-Day" busload went to Gulfport, Miss. The other went to New Orleans.

You haven't lived until you spend an all-nighter on Bourbon Street, trying to keep your company commander from chasing the wrong kind of women ("Uh, sir? I think she's a man
!"), and almost getting kicked out of a country karaoke bar with your first sergeant, because he wanted to sing "All My Exes Live in Texas" once too many times.

I had to carry one of my buddies into a taxi cab--held his head out the window like a drunken puppy--in order to get him back to the hotel. Just recently, I was interviewed for his pre-deployment security clearance. What goes on in the Big Easy, stays in the Big Easy.

There's a beauty and charm to the American South that's easy for a flat-lander like me to forget. To appreciate it, you have to not mind getting sticky. And developed a tolerance for exotic and pungent smells. To this day, I can still remember the full-on nasal assault of a New Orleans dumpster. Laissez les bon temps rouler!

You gotta take the bad, after all, if you want the good. You can't have Mardi Gras, if you don't have Lent. You can't have the deployment, without the mobilization station.

Camp Shelby is the largest state-owned training site in the United States, comprising more than 525 square kilometers. and has served as a training and mobilization station for units in World War II, Vietnam, and Operations Iraqi Freedom (OIF) and Enduring Freedom (OEF), as well as others. A series of stones on the grounds of the Mississippi Armed Forces Museum memorializes some of the units that have gone before.

The 1st Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry Division (1-34th B.C.T.) came through here at least once before, prior to deploying to Iraq in 2005. The 2-34th BCT's own 1st Battalion, 133rd Infantry Regiment (1-133 INF)--the "Ironman" Battalion--was one of those units.

There's apparently been a lot of construction on Camp Shelby in the past 20 years. The Post Exchange (P.X.)--a military equivalent of a truck stop store, or a convenience mart on steroids--is undergoing an expansion and renovation.

At the PX, soldiers can buy snacks and DVDs and pocket knives. They're not allowed to purchase or consume alcohol at any time, even the the PX has some of that, too. There are some food vendors parked in trailers outside the PX, allowing soldiers to replace (at their own expenses) their M.R.E. lunches with pizza and pork fritters and burritos and catfish. Ah, life on the FOB!

I haven't yet gotten a chance to visit the on-post museum, but I note that, in World War II, German prisoners-of-war (P.O.W.) from the North African campaign were housed at Camp Shelby. I seem to recall that POWs were required to be housed in environmental conditions similar to that of their points of capture. In matching the misery and heat of the North African desert, Camp Shelby apparently fit the bill.

Welcome to Shelbistan!

Jumping TOC, Jumping Through Hoops

The sergeant major from Training Site burst into the room where we've set up a temporary TOC--a "Tactical Operations Center." The brigade headquarters "jumped" with about two weeks' notice, displacing from the armory in Boone, Iowa, to an old hospital and barracks complex on Camp Dodge, near Johnson. The camp is the largest military installation in the state of Iowa.

Luckily for me, the sole guy on duty at the time, the sergeant major was in a good mood. He usually is, but the word earlier in the week had been that he'd been seen in Extremely Grumpy Mode. I'm actually surprised we don't see the Dark Side of the Sergeant Major more often. After all, anybody who's ever worked in building management knows that tenants only bring problems.

"'Restricted Area?!'" he bellows at me good naturedly, pointing to the sign that had been posted outside on the should-have-been-locked door. "Where's your access roster?"

As the sole representative of the brigade headquarters present, I get the full treatment. He's venting, and I'm always willing to learn new tips and tricks. He makes the point that brigade pretty much jumped TOC without telling anyone, then wondered why there were no buildings, telephones, chairs, or photocopiers to welcome the liberation. I mention to him that, during my in-processing meeting with the Iowa National Guard's Human Resources office, I'd noticed that my orders still indicated my duty station would be Boone, Iowa.

"I had an old sergeant major once teach me this phrase: 'Meals, Wheels, Orders, and Quarters,'" he says. "You make sure to take care of those things, and you're always good to go."

In the weeks following that encounter, those words have kept coming back to me. The TOC crew has been cranking out orders left and right. The "future operations" come up with the plans 90-or-more days out. The "current operations" guys are supposed to execute the plan.

Normally, we refer to short-term notice as "shooting at 25-meter targets." The way things have been working recently, however? "Knife-fight" range. "Hand-to-hand combat" range. It's a fast pace, but at least you can say that there's always something different.

Things are really jumping now ...