The 'Leaning on the Butterfly' Effect

FORT IRWIN, Calif., Sept. 26--It's the second full day in the National Training Center (N.T.C.), and a majority of the battalions comprising 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 34th Infantry "Red Bull" Division has reported at least one negligent discharge of a weapon each.

In other words, in just two-plus days in the desert, a handful of friendly weapons have gone off when they weren't supposed to. A couple have been M4 carbines, the smaller, not-too-distant cousin of the M16 rifle. At least one was an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon ("SAW"), which fires the same pinkie-finger-sized ammunition as used in the M4. Rather than shooting one or three rounds at a time, however, the SAW is a light machine gun. It belches belt-fulls of the stuff.

All that pales, however, to the damage potentailly caused by the hot-dog-sized round launched by a vehicle-mounted .50-cal. M2 Browning machine gun. The "ma-deuce" fires is classic killer, a design mostly untouched and unrefined since its invention in the 1920s. The machine gun is fired by depressing with two thumbs a wing-shaped switch at the rear of the weapon. The switch is called the "butterfly."

Because the Red Bull units are only using blank ammunition at NTC, no one has yet been injured. That doesn't offer much relief to soldiers and their leaders, however, who treat every incident like the real deal. "Train like you fight, fight like you train."

The Army doesn't talk about "accidents." Rather, it speaks of "incidents." The circumstances surrounding the unplanned or unintentional firing of any weapon are formally investigated by an officer, and reported through safety representatives, to determine the what can be done to prevent similar incidents in the future. Safety is deadly serious business.

The brigade commander--"Ryder-6"--has called in his staff to attend the evening's teleconference with his battalion commanders. Red Bull staff are typically supposed to be seen and not heard, but such sessions are one of the only ways a brigade staffer can hear directly from their customers out in the field. Logistics guys listen out for logistics problems, communications guys listen out for communications problems, and so on. If you hear the same things from more than one commander, you know you've got a problem that potentially affects more than 3,000 of your fellow soldiers.

The brigade has been in the field for three days and nine meals, and battalions are only now beginning to feed on hot "Class-A" rations. There have been problems throughout the supply chain, pushing goods from unit to unit, breaking them down into smaller amounts along the way. The NTC, after all, is a realistic simulation of real-world challenges. "Time and distance is going to be a factor," observes the brigade commander, "and it's going to be that way."

In some cases, however, the lack of hot chow may have been self-inflicted. One unit, recognizing that it required live ammunition in order to conduct live-fire exercises the next day, reprioritized and requested the next supply convoy deliver less food than ammo. With limited cargo space, it's either "guns or butter." This time, the guns won.

Of course, the same listening technique of "three times briefed makes a trend" also works for those in command. And tonight, the brigade commander is hearing the continuation of a couple of trends that date all the way back to June, when the unit was conducting pre-mobilization training at Camp Ripley, Minn.

It's routine and it's basic stuff, but that doesn't make any of it acceptable to the commander: Soldiers are losing stuff, they're getting careless, and they're needlessly getting hurt.

In a few cases, soldiers are losing track of what the Army calls "sensitive items"--high-dollar and low-level-classified equipments. Things like the M68 Close Combat Optic (C.C.O.), an aiming device that attaches to a rail on a soldier's M4 carbine. The device isn't considered "secret," but is supposed to be accounted for on the twice-daily sensitive-item inventories. Once installed, there's little reason to take it off. Soldiers were instructed to safety-wire such equipment to their rifles, months ago.

"What did we say back at Camp Ripley? 'Dummy-cord your stuff,'" says Ryder-6. "Tie your s--- down. No excuses. That's the order." The commander keeps his anger in reserve, but his frustration still heats up the room a little.

He urges his commanders to emphasize the fundamentals--"mission first, but safety always"--and tries to keep the messages positive. One commander reports a soldier has twisted an ankle while walking around in the darkness on a Forward Operating Base ("FOB"). "We're doing some great training out here, and I realize that soldiers are going to get hurt," says Ryder-6. "But walking out of a TOC and into a water drainage ditch? That one hurts."

"Heat injuries are going to be next," he observes, noting the lack of hot meals and the daily desert highs in the 100-plus-degrees Fahrenheit. Troops have to eat, as well as drink, in order to hydrate and stay healthy. Some troops don't like to eat in the heat, however, particularly when it's a never-ending menu of "Meals, Ready-to-Eat." They start skipping meals.

The most troubling trend for commanders, however--indeed, for anyone who works with or around a weapon--are negligent discharges. Each battalion commander takes his turn in the telephonic hot seat, and rattles off the high- and low-points of the day. Four out of six commanders has at least one negligent discharge on which to report.

The commander whose unit had the negligent discharge of the .50-cal. machine gun says that it occurred when a soldier accidentally "leaned on the butterfly." An awfully small action, resulting with in an awfully big mistake with an even bigger bullet.

The Army's own "butterfly effect."

Before walking onto any FOB, each soldier dismounts and points his or her weapon into a sand-filled "clearing barrel." (There are similar procedures for vehicle-mounted weapons, ones that don't use the barrel.) Soldiers pull the charging handles of their individual weapons, and have an observer confirm there is no ammunition present in the chamber. Then, the soldier pulls the trigger of the weapon while it's pointed into the clearing barrel. If the weapon goes off the clearing barrel will catch or direct the round. It still counts as a negligent discharge, but it's arguably safer than having a still-loaded weapon go off in a barracks or dining facility.

"Buddy-clear your weapons," Ryder-6 says, figuratively footstomping his point. "We have hired junior leaders--NCOs and platoon leaders--to make sure that happens. Make sure they do their jobs."

"It's easy," he says. "It's too easy ..."

P.A.C.E. Your Family's Communications Plan

I'm really not a survivalist type, but, given the "what-if" natures of both my civilian and military jobs, I can get real paranoid real fast when it comes to safety, security, and emergency preparedness. Still, I'm probably more of a "prepper" than a "survivalist." I tend to make plans rather than all-out preparations.

And, given my experience as an Army radio-telephone operator (R.T.O.), I usually focus on communications as a place to start.

Most of the time, I try to dial it back a little, so as not to scare others. For example, when I asked my kids' daycare provider about what their communications plan for winter school closings, I forced myself NOT to follow-up with a question about what the plan would be if the high-school next door was locked down for a bomb threat or a shooting incident.

(Before you ask--yes, I can either be real fun at parties, or a big downer. Depends on your perspective, I suppose, and whether my glass has yet been half-emptied on that particular evening.)

My kid brother lives in the San Francisco Bay area--earthquake country. His kids' daycare maintains an on-site semi-trailer full of parentally provided emergency backpacks, each of which contain supplies enough to take care of a kid for a couple of days.

I think this is brilliant--the administrators are obviously thinking about the unthinkable. Even if (when?) the "big one" hits, crashing phone systems and curdling pavement, parents will know that their kids will be OK. There's no "failure of imagination" at that daycare!

Soldiers and their families can incorporate a similar approach toward deployment. To help sort through the host of 21st century communications options--including e-mail, Facebook, web cameras, telephones--I recommend a "PACE" communications plan. Yep, it's the same way we talk it in the military:

Primary. What's the most-preferred means of communications?

Alternate. As a back-up to the primary, what's the second-most-prefered means of communications?

Contingency. What is the means of communications if something big and bad happens--think earthquakes and floods and hurricanes--an event that eliminates the possibility of using the Primary or Alternate? In other words, where and how would the soldier contact his/her family, if the family suddenly was without all services, or had to evacuate cross-country? One tip: Designate an out-of-state contact person that everyone (including the overseas soldier) can call to check-in; long-distance phone lines can sometimes function when local service has been cut.

Emergency. How will the soldier be notified if there's a death or illness in the family? Believe it or not, this may be the easiest part of the plan on which to agree. That's because the American Red Cross is the emergency channel of choice for communicating such information to soldiers. Red Cross notification and verification is required for getting a soldier emergency leave, when feasible. Click here for an overview of the message process; note that the procedure is the same, whether a National Guard soldier is deployed overseas or merely at stateside Annual Training.

In your family's plans, remember that there will be times that communications will simply not work downrange, possibly for days at a time. Time and technology work more slowly overseas. Internet and phone services in-country might be slow, unreliable, and unsecure. They may also be temporarily cut in order for official communications to take priority. Postal mail delivery may also be slow, depending on a soldier's location.

Because of these reasons, many military families adopt a "no news is good news" approach. Any message of significance--an injury, for example--would come either directly from the soldier, or through official channels. Otherwise, make a plan and figure out what mutually works best.

On my first deployment, my wife and I decided to avoid using e-mail much, if for no other reason than we mutually consider "romantic e-mail" to be a contradiction in terms. Our phone calls were weekly, at best--the time-difference made it hard to find the right time to call, and the long pauses and delays caused by the satellite system forced us to sometimes use radio procedure words such as "OVER" and "OUT."

I also had to train myself out of "chief household problem-solver" mode; when Household-6 told me about a problem--a leaky faucet, for example--I had to realize that she'd probably already taken care of it. It wasn't my job to fix her problems while I was away. Instead, my role while deployed was listen to her problems, and offer support and ideas as I could.

I might seem paranoid sometimes, but apparently I can be a sensitive guy, too.

At least, that's what some people say. Sounds like a worst-case scenario to me.

Employees Must Wash Their Hands

The Army Combat Uniform (A.C.U.) offers a couple of make-your-own-fashion quirks, particularly in the placement and utility of pockets. There are the usual pockets, of course: Breast pockets on the ACU blouse, front- and back-pockets on the trousers.

There are more alien pockets, however. Strange pockets that are potentially useful, if only soldiers could figure out just how to use them, or what to put in them.

Take the upper-shoulder pockets, upon which the unit and combat-service patches are placed. The typical soldier in my unit carries his/her cell phone or Blackberry one of these pockets. That position apparently gives the most cloth-on-skin contact, so devices set to vibrating "silenced" modes can still be felt. Me? I put my personal smart phone in my right cargo pocket. I can't feel it when it starts vibrating, but I'm also not important enough to get a lot of calls.

The most common complaints about the ACU cargo pockets are that the "hook and loop fastener"--the Velcro--wears out too quickly, and that the draw-cords intended to help cinch the pockets closed don't exactly do the trick. Word is that the new U.S. units heading-to-Afghanistan-only MultiCam uniforms will actually feature button-closure cargo pockets.

There are smaller pockets on each calf, too, barely big enough for a pack of smokes or a cell phone. I've never had reason to use a calf pocket until recently, when I figured it might be a good place for my hand-sanitizer gel. (Or, as my 5-year-old daughter Lena calls it: "handi-tizer.")

When an H1N1 Swine Flu pandemic seemed imminent last year, Midwestern stores started stocking hand-sanitizer in jug-sizes. Even the Iowa National Guard started placing pump bottles of the stuff near the entries to some offices. I remember observing a natural disaster exercise in one of our state operations centers last summer, and suddenly coming to the conclusion that the night-shift soldiers had been drinking. It smelled like a Russian vodka freighter in there. Avast!

It took me a couple of minutes to realize that it was actually the smell of alcohol-based hand-sanitzer.

A couple of Red Bull soldiers who have already been to Afghanistan say that hand-sanitizer is one of the best ways to combat germs. There's a lot of hand-shaking and cheek-kissing to this counterinsurgency fight, as well as eating exotic and unidentified foods. (Potential Red Bull T-shirt: "Winning hearts and minds is a dirty business, so be sure to wash your hands.") I've even heard that one social technique is to pass the stuff around to Afghans and U.S. personnel alike, as a show of hospitality and sharing.

Of course, if you're new to using one of those ACU pockets, it's easy to forget when you're patting-down your pockets prior to conducting personal laundry operations. I found that out this week, when I did a couple of larger loads. All my uniforms and T-shirts and socks came out smelling kind of, well ... like they had a bit more "kick" to them than usual.

Let's just say that I now prefer my laundry shaken, not stirred.

Carney Posthumously Awarded Infantry Badge

I mentioned in an earlier post that my unit, the Headquarters Company of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team (BCT), 34th "Red Bull" Infantry Division, lost a soldier while he was deployed to Afghanistan as an Embedded Training Team (ETT) member in Aug. 2007. Sgt. First Class Scott Carney was killed in a non-combat Humvee accident in Herat Province.

Carney, 37, was survived by his wife Jeni and twin sons Jacob and Justin. He was posthumously promoted to the rank of Master Sergeant. I've previously tried to describe how his family continues to be present in the life of my unit. Words may fail, but memory lives.

In a ceremony earlier this week, Carney's family was presented with his Combat Infantryman Badge, or "C.I.B.") The CIB is awarded to soldiers the rank of colonel or below, who hold an Infantry Military Occupational Specialty (M.O.S.), and who actively engage a hostile force in combat. There are those--myself included--who regard the CIB to be one of the highest awards available, because is celebrates the role of the Infantry soldier as the single-most important person in the Army. Without him, we could not close with and destroy our country's enemies. Without him, every other kind of soldier would just have to pack up and go home.

Carney was involved in combat operations qualifying him for the CIB on June 18, 2007, when he provided suppressive machine-gun fires as a vehicular gunner in Farah Province, allowing the extraction of Afghan National Police (A.N.P.) and U.S. military personnel who had come under fire.

He died in a Humvee rollover on Aug. 24, 2007. Although Carney was buried in his green Class A service uniform displaying the CIB--mortuary affairs had documented that he would be posthumously awarded the badge--the official paperwork back here in the states was subsequently twice rejected, delayed by a higher, non-Iowa headquarters' confusion of the two incidents. After more than 2 years of waiting, that was finally and memorably corrected at last week's ceremony, during which Carney's sons were each presented CIB certificates and badges.

The CIB design is rectangular, with a musket imposed on a field of blue, the Infantry branch color. Behind the rectangle is a laurel wreath. The badge is similar but expressly different than the Expert Infantryman Badge (E.I.B.), which is awarded after a grueling proficiency test. The EIB does not feature the laurel wreath.

For a 10-minute YouTube video of the presentation of the award to Carney's family, including remarks made by Col. Tom Staton, current commander of the 2/34th BCT, click here.

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?