Posted on FloridaToday.com
CAMP BLANDING — CAMP BLANDING — Riding in the front passenger seat of an armored Humvee, Staff Sgt. Jaime Lugo calmly alerted others in the vehicle: “There is a possible IED.”
The Army convoy, which included Lugo and his fellow soldiers, had just gone around a curve. They were in the lead vehicle when Lugo spotted a clump of sticks that seemed out of place along the roadside, a possible improvised explosive device.
By the time a third vehicle in the convoy had reached the sticks, Lugo was on a radio, and his alert took on a sense of urgency. “IED! IED!” he shouted, as smoke billowed from another Humvee that carried soldiers just two vehicles behind his own.
Seconds later, they were under attack by enemy gunfire.
Insurgents in Iraq? No. The convoy was part of pre-deployment training that could mean life or death for soldiers preparing to head to Iraq early next year to provide security for exiting troops. The six-week training ends this week near Starke, southwest of Jacksonville and 160 miles north of Cocoa.
Lugo and about 100 other soldiers from the Cocoa Armory are among 2,500 troops from throughout the state in the intensive and essential training, preparing to leave in early January on the largest deployment of National Guard units from Florida since World War II.
The guard unit will leave in early January for Fort Hood, Texas, where they will train for several more weeks before deployment to Iraq and Kuwait in early February.
They will take with them 1,000 vehicles and weapon systems to protect convoys and transportation routes between Iraq and Kuwait as the United States continues troop withdrawal and turns over security responsibilities to the Iraqi government.
Camp Blanding is a 72,000-acre military training center. But for the National Guard and Army soldiers who train there, it provides lifelike wartime scenarios, including a mockup of an Iraqi village, rugged red clay-packed terrain and Iraqi people. Iraqi nationals take part in the training encounters.
“We have a vehicle down,” Lugo, a Titusville resident, said as the sound of gunfire erupted nearby.
After the IED exploded during the simulation, the convoy stopped, and guardsmen took up defense positions as automatic fire sounded from M-4 rifles. Blank bullets were used.
Amid the gunfire, troops rendered aid to four soldiers who lay injured in one of the vehicles, and they worked to tow the damaged vehicle out of harm’s way.
“We’ll leave the casualties in the vehicle because we’re still getting fire,” Lt. Paul Meyers called out to the troops. Smoke obscured where some of the enemy fighters had taken cover.
Soldiers said the realistic training is a morale booster that has made them more confident about the role they’ll play in Iraq and Kuwait.
“Before, we didn’t have the chance to work together consistently,” said Pvt. 1st Class Christopher Scuteri. “We created this bond, and we come together as a family.”
Scuteri, a 25-year-old graphics artist from Satellite Beach, said he joined the National Guard about 16 months ago.
“I have a lot of friends that are deployed over there,” he said. “I wanted to do my part.”
Scuteri and the others have trained with Iraqi nationals who play the part of enemy fighters and protesters in the simulated Iraqi communities, where troop commanders occasionally have to meet with village leaders in the street.
“This is pretty realistic training,” said Jason Malz, commander of the Cocoa-based Bravo Company of the 1st Battalion, 124th Infantry Regiment.
On a nearby firing range, soldiers with M-4 rifles shot from different positions while wearing gas masks. The exercise was designed to help soldiers meet accuracy standards, and it required them to fire at silhouettes of torsos that pop up from behind earthen berms at varying distances. They also must train in defending themselves during foot patrols that take place in urban settings.
“These are all things that in the real world, these soldiers will have to deal with,” said Lt. Col. Dan Hartman, director of the Fall Classic training. “These scripts follow what they will encounter.”
In another training exercise, a convoy of soldiers rolled down an isolated road but stopped when the lead vehicle rolled toward a small log in the roadway. After checking the log and scanning for enemies, the first vehicle moved on.
“Push through, push through, don’t stop,” Lugo tells his driver, who slowed down upon hearing the echo of automatic gunfire.
“They’re taking fire,” said the driver, Sgt. Francesca Langley, 25, of Sarasota.
The soldiers fired back from their vehicles, but the convoy pressed forward.
“We’ve been preparing since the first of the year,” said Spec. Ryan Shinault of Rockledge. “I think we’re more than ready to go to Texas and overseas.”
Most of the soldiers are in their 20s and have never deployed before. But they also have among them war-tested veterans such as Lugo, who was among some of the first to be sent to Iraq in 2003.
“There’s always going to be some worry,’ Shinault said. “But I’m not that worried about it.”
Private 1st Class Nathaniel Whitson, 22, of Cocoa Beach said he thinks the training has prepared them well for deployment.
“I have mixed emotions,” he said. “Of course, my fiancee is not happy about my going over there.”
Between Afghanistan and Iraq, the United States has been at war for eight years. Lessons learned by those before them have been passed along to deploying troops, said Col. Richard Gallant, commander of the 53rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team. Certain portions of the training are repeated until the troops get it right.
