Where do part-time soldiers train for war before they’re deloyed? At a military camp in Mississippi.

Mark Cantrell

At high noon on a blistering midsummer day, a column of Humvees rumbles down a dusty road toward the small Iraqi town of Trebil. Intelligence indicates insurgents are hiding there among the townspeople, and today’s mission is a cordon-and-search operation designed to root them out. The Humvees are quickly stationed at all key exit points as commanders locate the town’s sheik and police chief, hoping they will aid in the search. But one thing about these Iraqi leaders is unexpected: They’re wearing ID badges.

That’s because Trebil is located not in Iraq, but at Camp Shelby, Miss. The troops are from the Wisconsin National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 127th Infantry Regiment, and they’re here to learn tactics that they’ll need for their upcoming deployment overseas. Trebil is one manifestation of the Army’s Total Theater Immersion concept, which aims to make a soldier’s training experience as realistic as possible.

Camp Shelby is one of just two facilities activated as National Guard mobilization centers in July 2004, the other being Camp Atterbury, Ind. (see page 56). “But Camp Shelby has the most capacity by far,” says camp commander Col. Earnie Shows, ARNG, an amiable man with a pronounced southern drawl, who assumed control of the base in July 2005. “We have the training lanes, forward operating bases [FOBs], theater-immersion package, and ranges the soldiers need, and we’ve adapted them to the current modality and methodology they’ll be using overseas.”

The camp’s current role as a mobilization center may be fairly new, but the facility dates back to the early 20th century. “We were organized in 1917 as a post for World War I,” Shows explains. “The first unit stationed here … was the 38th Infantry Division out of Kentucky, known as the ‘Cyclone Division.’ They got that name when they were hit by tornadoes here during training. They had the honor of naming the camp and called it Camp Shelby after the first governor of the state of Kentucky, Isaac Shelby, who was a Revolutionary War general.”

In July 2005, only one battalion was in training at Camp Shelby, but the facility has hosted many more, most notably in the fall of 2004. “We had the 278th Regimental Combat Team and the 158th Brigade Combat Team training here simultaneously,” says Shows. “We had about 8,000 people from the unit mobilizing, about 2,000 from the installation, counting the Training Support Brigade, and we had tenants on post. Right now we have about 850 — the 2-127th, which has about 600 soldiers in that battalion, and four other units we call itty-bitty units. We picked up that term from Lt. Gen. [Russel] Honoré.”

The first thing soldiers notice on deplaning is the humidity. Here in the dead heat of a southern Mississippi summer, just a gull’s flight from the Gulf of Mexico, sweat rules. It pools under your helmet, soaks through the fatigues beneath your body armor, and trickles into your boots. “The thing I remember most about the day I got here was stepping off the plane and just being hit with the humidity and heat,” remembers Spc. James Boutott, ARNG, who resembles M*A*S*H’s Radar O’Reilly both in appearance and voice. “That’s probably one of the biggest shockers there is. With all the weight [soldiers carry], you really start to cook after a while.” But, he adds gamely, “Eventually you just get used to it.”

Under the theater-immersion concept, new arrivals are introduced to battlefield conditions without delay. “When the 2-127th came in from Wisconsin, we brought them in from the airport in Gulfport, transported them up here in commercial buses, [moved them] onto smaller buses, and carried them right out to the FOBs,” says Shows. “That’s where they lived the first couple of weeks they were here. They were injected right into conditions they’ll face when they get into the field.”

After two weeks of living in tents with no air conditioning or other amenities, the soldiers are billeted in climate-controlled, concrete-block barracks, 15 to 20 soldiers per building. That’s a closer match to their Iraq accommodations than the FOB, because the tents there will be air-conditioned as well. A couple of weeks spent in Mississippi’s unrelenting heat gives troops an idea of what they’ll face after deployment, as summer temperatures in Iraq regularly hover between 120 and 130 degrees Fahrenheit, though without the stifling Gulf humidity.

A guardmember’s stay at Camp Shelby begins with Soldier Readiness Processing, where each person’s financial, legal, and job-specific documents are checked and the soldier is certified as physically and mentally ready for deployment. Then it’s time for classes and hands-on training in basic lifesaving skills, unexploded ordnance identification, cultural awareness, communications equipment operations, and chemical and biological hazard survival. The unit is issued battlefield gear and completes familiarization and qualification training with various weapons, wrapping up with a road march, stress fire, and reflexive fire training. It all happens in two-and-a-half to three months.

A soldier’s day begins early, with physical fitness at 5:30 a.m., followed by any number of learning experiences. This could include Humvee convoy training, building-to-building and room-to-room searches, FOB defense, checkpoint and cordon-and-search operations, and many others. And sleep doesn’t come early: Training often continues until 10 p.m. or later, after which weapons and other equipment must be cleaned. “Tonight we’ll be up all night shooting night fire,” says Boutott, “and we’ve been up since 4 a.m.”

That’s not a complaint. Boutott says his best experience was stress-fire training: “We did a long road march to get us all tired out, and then we’d have to shoot at pop-up targets with live rounds. It was fun.” Of course, the targets at Camp Shelby don’t shoot back — but the troops do get to interact with real Iraqis. And that brings us to Trebil.

“First Army Command wanted us to replicate, as closely as possible, the environment the soldiers would be injected into on deployment,” explains Shows. “Using information from overseas on how they should be configured and how they should look, we worked together and came up with a mock-up of the types of villages and activities they will run into and cobbled them together as a training aid. We now have five mock villages for them to use.” To add to the realism, a few Iraqi nationals were hired as “townspeople,” along with some locals from Hattiesburg.

On the way to Trebil one sweltering day, 2-127th public affairs officer Capt. Benjamin Buchholz, ARNG, a strapping, corn-fed young Wisconsin guardsman, explains what lies ahead. “There are two installations at this location: the village, which is on a crossroads, and the FOB just beyond that. So the two are in close proximity — probably a little closer than you’d want them to be in real life. Sometimes they have FOBs right downtown in Baghdad, but usually you want to have more standoff distance so you can tell if someone’s coming at you or just minding his own business.”

Less than a half-mile from the town, Lt. Eric Schack, ARNG, energetic and radiating confidence, assembles a column of Humvees and personnel carriers for the cordon-and-search operation and gives the word to advance. The convoy quickly seals off Trebil and begins a house-to-house search for insurgents after negotiating clearance from the town’s leaders. But as soldiers begin the hunt, some of the townspeople become irate, attempting to interfere with the operation. The guardmembers push them back, issuing repeated warnings. Other villagers beg for water and food, continually hounding soldiers who are trying to get their jobs done. It’s a confusing, chaotic scene — just as it will be in Iraq.

Finally, the insurgents’ location is pinpointed, on the second story of a building beside the main road. As troops crouch at the bottom of the stairs, ready to storm the bad guys’ hideout, twin concussions shake the building and everyone stops in their tracks. A gunner on a nearby Humvee has accidentally fired his weapon. The rounds aren’t live, but it instantly adds a chilling note of realism to the operation. An instructor immediately strides through the building. “And what do we call that?” he bellows. “Negligence.” He bites off each syllable for emphasis, and it’s clear everyone gets the message. There’ll be hell to pay at today’s after-action review.

The operation resumes, and soon troops have cornered the terrorists on the building’s balcony. In a scene eerily reminiscent of the 1972 Munich Olympics, soldiers train their weapons on the terrorists as they kneel on the balcony floor, but this time the good guys win.
 
The next day is devoted to ground-assault convoy training on Camp Shelby’s Range 45. It’s a broad, rolling plain with little cover, crisscrossed with dusty roads and sprinkled with pop-up targets in Iraqi garb. At one end sits another simulated Iraqi town. In one Humvee, the observer/controller (O/C) standing in the rear hatch helps the turret gunner check his M-2 .50-caliber machine gun while the driver and vehicle commander (VC) wait for the order to move out. Although the hatch and turret are open to the sky, it feels like an oven inside. And with a helmet on, it’s not easy to hear over the rumble of the engine.

The O/C calls for a weapons test fire, and the gunner cranks off a few rounds. Then the convoy begins to move, and almost immediately the radio crackles to life: “Bravo 42, intelligence reports enemy insurgent activity in the area, over.” The VC tells everyone to look sharp. The words have no sooner left his mouth than the gunner yells “Contact, contact!” — a pop-up target has just reared up from behind some bushes.

The machine gun chatters, spent casings pinging off the walls and clattering around the Humvee’s metal floor. The VC’s M-16 adds to the din. Finally, the O/C pronounces the threat eliminated. The convoy continues down the road, and soon there’s another warning from HQ. An Iraqi informant has told commanders that the shops in the village ahead are closing early and insurgent activity is suspected. The convoy is to secure the village and report back.

But before that can happen, the gunner spots another threat, and the VC keys the mike. “This is Bravo 42 Charlie,” he says. “Suspected IED in the road at 12 o’clock, over.” HQ directs the convoy around the improvised explosive device; a team will be sent to detonate it later.

“When we get to the village, there are three things I want you to ensure happens,” the O/C tells the soldiers. “This vehicle is off. The parking brake is set. And the chock block is put behind the left rear tire of the vehicle.” The convoy pulls into the village, where the Humvees must climb a sharp embankment overlooking the range. The driver gooses the Humvee up the steep rise, and everyone jumps out and assumes a prone position beside the vehicle. Suddenly, pop-up targets are everywhere. The soldiers blaze away at the targets while instructors watch closely.
 
Satisfied with the troops’ response, O/Cs order a return to the vehicles, and soon the Humvees are queued up again, rolling down the hill toward a group of low cinder block buildings. More pop-ups arise, but this time there’s a problem. “Weapon jam!” shouts the gunner as the VC continues to fire. The weapon will have to be disassembled and cleaned before it will work again.

As the convoy approaches the end of the course, there’s a final assault, including a simulated injury and a medevac. The loss of the .50-caliber gun would have serious implications in Iraq; here it serves as yet another lesson. And then, finally, it’s over. The soldiers dismount and clear their weapons at an in-ground station and return to the rally point. It’s been a hectic, tiring day, and the training isn’t over yet. Tomorrow the ammo will be live.

The crucible that is Camp Shelby may be a grueling test for the soldiers, but what they learn here will be crucial to their mission in Iraq, as will the relationships they forge with their comrades. “We all knew each other before coming down here, but as time goes by we just seem to get closer,” says Boutott. “I can’t imagine how close we’re going to be as a team by the end of our tour.”