"FALL IN!"

Since the Iraq war is now a rather low intensity conflict, with very little actual war happening, the Army, rather than leave the country, feels the need to find things for it’s soldiers to do instead of the usual sitting around and doing nothing, making lady GaGa music videos, and going to the gym 12 hours a day. To occupy time the Army occasionally does training to keep it’s soldiers in shape and proficient at their jobs. Since we’re a light infantry unit, our main job is (supposed to be) shooting things, and walking places. Since it’s too hot to walk, and let’s face it, no one really wants to do that, the command decided that we were due for a range day here at Tallil. The wonderful thing about the desert is that nothing lives there. Southern Iraq basically looks exactly like the deserts in the movies, flat, dry, hot, and lifeless, except there’s the occasional random berm or road to nowhere. Well the command felt the need to verify that outside the gate was in fact a wide open desert with no one living in it so we could go shoot. This meant that a “leader’s recon” of the site had to take place. Now usually the term “Leaders Recon” is used to denote the hours before an attack where a small group of the leadership sneaks up closer to the objective to see what exactly they’re attacking. So when I was told that my truck was being chose for a “leader’s recon” I was expecting that we’d be thrown into an attack soon, in reality I was driving 20 minutes outside the gate into Indian country to make sure that the desert is in fact flat, lifeless, and hot. Why was my truck picked? Well to quote a confidential source “yeah, we picked your truck because you guys are dependable, and won’t tell the CO to go screw himself.”

That’s right ladies and gentlemen, the reward for being a dependable, good soldier in the army is getting put of crummy details.

So we all load up in 3 trucks to go make sure the desert is flat and lifeless. We drive for like 20-25 minutes till we’re definitely in the middle of nowhere, at a stretch of desert with a few random berms, a narrow road that appears to go to nowhere and no targets whatsoever. The CO said we were on the range, and told all officers and NCOs to get out and meet on him while the junior enlisted pull security to make sure they don’t get jumped, sniped, mortared, etc. What unfolded looked like a scene from a terrible war movie. We had 1 captain, 2 lieutenants, 1 first sergeant, 2 staff sergeants, and 3 sergeants all huddled in a mass about the size of a practice target on a mortar range, silhouetted against the skyline on top of a berm looking like a shooting gallery for a sniper. My driver and I, while pulling security to make sure that nothing happened to our fearless band of leaders realized pulling security was boring and then opted to turn our leader’s recon into a facebook picture photo shoot. In our defense we still remained vigilant while taking pictures, and always left someone up in the machine gun turret. After a few minutes of modeling my new bayonet, and the leadership discussing how the range would work we piled back in the trucks and headed back to base.

A few days later the actual range day kicked off. The whole company loaded up into our trucks and we all convoyed out there to the middle of the desert. Now there’s a few things that you don’t do in a war zone, bunching together, silhouetting yourself, standing at attention, and saluting. The reason for this is that big bunches of people get attacked with artillery and mortars, people who are silhouetted against the sky get shot, people standing at attention have zero situational awareness, and if you salute someone, you’re basically telling any sniper that “Hey Mr. Sniper, this guy is an officer, if you shoot him in the face, we won’t have anyone in charge.” So where was I? oh yeah, so we get out of the trucks, stand around, wait for instructions on how this range will work until we hear the two words no soldier should ever hear when he’s outside the wire, in full battle gear, in a combat zone.

“Alright guys, FALL IN!”

Wait…what? Like seriously? We’re really doing this? I mean, this company has done a lot of really dumb, and silly things, but have a formation in a warzone? Like for realz guys? So like soldiers, we all form up into our squads and sections, and then go to attention. Eyes forward, chest out, standing tall. The CO comes up, the 1st Sergeant salutes, the CO salutes back, they call up people to get promoted. They promote some guys, more saluting, more standing at attention, more being in a big block of people in the open, then after we finish getting talked at, we finally fall out and start the range day. I seriously stood in a formation, not only in a combat zone, but outside the wire, in a place where people want to kill you. I mean, we all honestly deserved getting blown up for being that stupid. Though someone else brought up another point, if this country is at the point we can stand in a formation, salute each other, and in general, be idiots outside our protected bases, why do we even need to be here anymore? Just food for thought.