The Unawriter's Lair

A Good Day for a Beat Down

On Friday, June 18, 2010, the 973rd COB's returned to the training range for the tenth time since January to work with the Marion County Sheriff Department on active shooter scenarios. This was our first opportunity to work with MCSD, and the event was an extraordinary success. We received the invite to this exercise on Wednesday evening but still managed to bring eight members of the 973rd despite the short notice. We worked from 0600-1600 with three groups of about seven officers each, running vehicle stop scenarios and a few "lunatic running amok" in park iterations.

Joey Fugate, the master actor, reprised his role as "Mikey" the dimwitted petty criminal younger brother to my frustrated and straight-man role as "Tommy." That led to some interesting moments on the range, including one where Joey and I simulated being drunk and hostile. That led to me getting planted on the concrete and Joey's "Mikey" getting shot about a dozen times with sim rounds.

We have our own Robbie Marshall to thank for this new gig, and we'll have plenty of opportunities to work with MCSD in the months to come. We are running with them again on Monday for twelve hours, 0600-1800, and I'm sure it will be as successful as this first one turned out for everyone. Great day, great people, excellent training.

Our Half-Sasquatch 240 Gunner

  John Walch is a hard guy to miss. He's big, burly, more than a little hairy and is about the most loyal member of the 973rd we have.

Nicknamed "Ox," he goes through life at full speed. I mean full speed. During an airsoft game a couple years ago, he charged across a bridge wearing camo pants, boots and eyepro. Yep, shirtless, he stormed headlong into multiple 400 FPS automatic weapons, emerging with so many BB strikes on his bare chest that he looked like the first known case of small pox since the 1960's.

Ox has one objective in life: join the National Guard and serve in the infantry. Problem: he can't pass the ASVAB. John's dyslexic, something that his school system apparently missed.  Even though he knows more about basic soldiering than anyone other than the infantrmen who do it for a living, his dyslexia has kept him from scoring well enough to achieve his goal.

I think a lot of educators probably wrote Ox off as just not that bright. Not true. John's deceptively intelligent, and working with him in the field convinced me that he's frequently misread or misunderstood.

Enter two remarkable individuals: Bethany Jones and SSG Aaron Cochran. Aaron is one of the lynchpin NCO's in Alpha Company, 2-162, and he identified Ox's learning disability and offered to tutor him. Aaron lives in Springfield, Ox lives in Salem and doesn't have a driver's license yet, so Bethany Jones has been taken Ox down to the Alpha Co. armory twice a week for almost six months. Long into the evening, Aaron has been teaching Ox how to overcome his dyslexia and succeed at the ASVAB.

Last month, Ox retook the test and scored higher than he's ever scored before. He's not quite there, but I've got no doubt that he will continue to make progress and succeed. Every spare moment, I see him studying for the test. He takes a ratty book of sample questions and pages of dog-eared notes wherever he goes, so he can study every chance he gets. 

If the Guard recruited for heart alone, Ox would be #1 on their list. This kid has the biggest heart I've ever seen.

In the field at Rilea this past week, Ox carried an M240 Bravo machine gun. He learned to load it, fire it, clear jams and break it down in a matter of a few brief minutes of instruction. During the missions he and I were together, I watched him calmly clear jams and get the 240 firing again in high pressure situations.

Now, truth be told, we're not entirely sure that Ox is a full-blooded human. Rumor has it that his materinal grandmother slept with a bigfoot, which would make him a quarter Sasquatch. This would explain his hairiness and the absolutely foul stenches that he emits after a day in the field. He has been known to demolish restrooms, and more than one has been declared a biohazard after his visits. It is also a very, very bad idea to let Ox eat peanut butter straight from the jar, as apparently that nourishes some sort of half-formed twin inisde him that his body has been partially digesting since birth. The resultant evacuations from his orifices send women and children fleeing in terror and force the rest of us to don level three containment suits.

But for those who know and love Ox, and I count myself among that group, his quarter Sasquatch is part of his charm. In the field, he's a rock. Give him an assignment, he'll drive through granite walls to get it done exactly as you've specified. When the 973rd returns to Rilea this month to support another round of field training exercises with the RTI, Ox will be one of our loyal stalwarts.

Someday, he'll put on the uniform he so badly wants to wear. And when that day comes, I know I'll be there, along with the rest of the 973rd. That'll be a moment I will never forget. Life is all about setting goals and achieving them. At 21, Ox is already halfway there.

The 973rd's Latest Gigs

Last Friday, the 973rd reassembled at our favorite meeting spot (Mendi's Pizza) to scare away the other customers with our lengthy discussions on firearms and simulated bomb construction. Good times.

This spring marks the first full year the 973rd has functioned as an organization, and we are set to support the Oregon National Guard once again. With 2-162 deploying to Iraq in a few weeks, the 973rd's now working with new units, including the RTI where we'll be supporting Basic and Advanced NCO courses at Rilea. A huge thanks goes out to LTC Tanguey and SFC Jacques for allowing us to particapte and assist with these courses! I know everyone is looking forward to getting out into the field again and doing whatever we can to help.

Further Adventures of the 973rd COB

This week, the 973rd COB is back in action, this time as role-players for the Eugene SWAT Team during their annual training at Camp Rilea. Mark, Bethany, Kyle, Andrew, David A.,  Aaron, Joe M., Jessica and I are up here learning to make the transition from insurgent scumbag to criminal perp. The photos here show the group's masters of disguise at work.

This is very different work from what we did with MRT and with the 2-162 on drill weekends. So far, we've been bank robbers and hostages, drunken, stoned rednecks who've taken our wives hostage for sleeping around, and various murderers, drug-dealers, gamblers, suicidal city hall employees and general passer-bys.

The most interesting component so far has been the interplay between the Crisis Negotiation Team and our distraught criminal, gun-toting, mullet-haired 973rd perps. Basically, those conversations are a dip in the deep end of the psychological pool, and they always result in a constantly evolving mind game between scumbag (us) and crisis negotiator.

We've had to ramp up our acting skills, and nobody has done a better job of that than David A., whose suicide by cop moment should have earned him an Academy Award. David was a distraught city employee who'd brought a gun and some hooch to work, then barricaded himself in his office and planned to whack himself. Ultimately, he came out of city hall, wielding his pistol at the SWAT guys, and they dropped him with multiple shots. David then slumped and lay there dead on the steps without moving for at least ten minutes while the SWAT guys cleared the building.

More later!

Bethany Jones: No Man Will Ever Make a Woman of Her

I met Bethany Jones in summer of 2007 when she showed up with some friends of ours to one of our   local airsoft games. She spent the 4th of July with us that year, which is always a test of character since we usually set people on fire during our fireworks display. She loved it, which was a good sign. She also fit right in with our airsoft group and had built up her own arsenal of weapons by the end of that summer.

Once, I gave her a call on her cell phone. When she answered, she told me she was out shopping. Okay, chauvinistic moment here. I had images of Bethany at the mall, pawing through dresses at Macy's, or trying on shoes.

Silly me. She was out getting a red dot scope for her M4.

That's when I knew Bethany Jones was not your average woman. She joined our group in January, and immediately showed her commitment and dedication to our cause by going 37 hours straight to support two companies within 2-162. In the snow and rain. Without much food, and with no sleep. That was her introduction to our OPFOR role, and she not just enjoyed it, the ruggedness made her thrive.

One Sunday last winter, we all got together to go run around in the woods and practice our OPFOR roles by shooting the crap out of each other with our airsoft rifles. Bethany shows up at my office in a dress. I think time stopped. Who was this ultra-feminine human being? Certainly not the Jones I knew who never wore anything but slacks. I had a very tough time reconciling this vision before me, and the ass-kicking, name-taking woman who usually showed up to our weekend events. Have no fear, she stepped into the bathroom and emerged decked out in full Marpat, ready to inflict pain on anyone who happened to cross her sights.

Okay, I know what you're thinking.This is not normal behavior for a 27 year old woman. I had to get to know her better and figure out what made Jones tick.

Through many conversations and lunches, I began to peel back Bethany's hard-core outer shell. What I discovered underneath both surprised me, and left me feeling stupid and inadequate, like my own life hadn't had nearly the meaning hers has had.

Born and raised on a farm next to the Mount Angel Abby, Bethany grew up raising lambs, milking cows, working her family's fields, and generally learning to be tough, resilient and independent. She's hard-core tough. That runs deep in her. At the same time, she's very emotional and has a deep-seated romantic streak that can leave her in tears at stupid chick flicks like Sleepless in Seattle. She's a study in contrasts, uber-rugged, while at the same time she nurtures and takes care of everyone around her. It was the latter instinct that sent her to Africa, where she worked to improve the lives of those she met in her assigned village. When she returned, she became a foster parent and is now single-handedly raising three young children (one is her biological daughter).

Her ability to cook is now legendary within the 973rd. At drill weekends, she has been known to bring all sorts of goodies. In May, she brought a grill and we ate like royalty all weekend. Barbecue for dinner, french toast and bacon for breakfast. Chili whenever we wanted it. The Alpha Company guys had been eating MRE's all weekend and the smell of our freshly-cooked bacon drove many of them into our camp in search of a hand out. It was awesome, and no amount of thank-yous would ever suffice. Jones took care of us.

That said, she is a no-nonsense and dedicated COB when we're on the training range. Being a female, she gets all sorts of strange reactions from the Soldiers. They range from "What the hell is she doing here?" to "Don't touch her! That's a woman!" to "Hey, that woman's hot!"

Initially, A Co. took it easy on her. That was until they were busy trying to be gentle with her, and she just blew her stack. "For God's sake, would you just grow a pair and take down?" The stunned silence that followed was absolutely  precious. Nobody knew how to react to such a rebuke. Especially from a woman--and a pretty good looking one at that. Ultimately, A Co. learned that she can be treated just like the rest of us. I think maybe we all have a bit of a masochistic side to our personalities. We don't mind getting thrown around and man-pawed as the Soldiers search us. Jones takes the abuse and refines her reaction to near-art. She never stops, never quits. Even after she had her ribs bruised at Rilea after some Bravo Company guys gang-tackled her at a TCP, she kept bringing tons of attitude and sass to every iteration after that.

She also drives like Dale Jarrett on crack. Did I mention that? There are G-rides in Oregon that will never recover from her lead foot and her willingness to go cross-country in a four-door sedan.

In the process of all this craziness, Bethany's family and mine have become quite close. Our kids play together. She gives my daughter horse-back riding lessons, which underscored to my wife and I just what a marvelous and patient teacher she is. Her goal is to be a school teacher, and we have no doubt she will be an inspiring one who will leave a lasting impression on her students.

In the meantime, she will continue to torment the 2-162 as our burqa-wearing suicide bomber. Bethany gives the 973rd its attitude, its character. She takes care of us, but she also sets a gold bar standard in the field that serves as a litmus test for the rest of us. Can we top Bethany's latest efforts? Doubtful, but we all still try.

Up at Fort Lewis, during a conversation we were having while she was elsewhere, I tried to convey how tough she was with a quip that later got back to her (thanks, Taylor, you hoser!). It was meant to be a compliment, but it sure didn't come out right. Here's what I said:

"No man will ever make a woman of Bethany."

What I should have said is that few men are even worthy of Bethany. She's single. Somebody in the 2-162 needs to come forward and snatch her up (hey, you, tall & marginally attractive--get the freaking hint!). She's the kind of woman who will make a man great, no matter what his own limitations may be. She's got that kind of character.

I've never met another human being remotely like Bethany Jones. She's her own little oasis of oddities, humor, well-concealed fragility and sheer, raw power. Her spirit is untamed, her vision significant, and her path through life both meaningful and lonely. She has sacrificed much of her own happiness to take care of children who have suffered so much in their young lives. That willing sacrifice suffuses her character with a nobility many of us aspire to, but few achieve.

Joey Fugate: Our Irreverent Reverend

Joey Fugate didn't just join the 973rd, he sort of materialized into it and managed to transform its character and performance by his second drill with 2-162.

My introduction to Joey came the night he showed up at Camp Rilea for the February drill. Who the hell was this guy? He hung out in the barracks with us that night, cracking the most vile, but hilarious, jokes I've heard since college. He had us laughing hysterically until we finally fell asleep that night.

I didn't know what to think of this young man, who had the ability to be both ribald and pious at the same time. After talking with him, I discovered that Joey is not just a superb raconteur of jokes, but he's also a youth pastor for his church.

Huh?? I didn't get this at first. But then, I realized that Joey shares something in common with the troops we support. He's irreverently reverent. Off the wall at times, yes. But underneath that craziness is a man of profound depth and character. During our second drill, he realized the importance of our mission: to prepare those who fight.

That was the March drill at Goshen. I had a fever approaching 103 and was absolutely miserable. It wasn't raining much, thank God, and I was trying to keep a handle on three lanes at once, making sure my crew had everything they needed. At the same time, I'd periodically take our reserve group down to the route clearance lane to cause trouble and get dumped and detained. Sometime mid-afternoon, I stumbled up to our little break area in desperate need of a drink and some food. Bethany Jones was up there, and she'd cooked all sorts of stuff for the group. I couldn't believe what she'd brought: chili, hard boiled eggs, drinks and all sorts of other goodies. I had just dug in when Joey showed up with a stunned expression on his face. He was almost in tears.

Oh God, I thought, somebody's been hurt. I asked Joey what was wrong. He looked up at me and I swear his face was full of anguish. He'd been on the TCP lane, running checkpoints in a vehicle as a hostile local national. "I just killed five soldiers," he replied. "I'm just a dumb civilian from Oregon, and I blew them up with a car bomb." The realization of how vulnerable the men really are hit him full force. At the same time, the importance of the role we play sank in, and hard. We need to help get these men ready to go, and Joey suddenly glimpsed the magnitude and the gravity of that mission. We call it a Coming to God moment. Every one of us has had the same epiphany out there, and it cements us to our mission like nothing else.

Ever since, Joey has been on it. Anything, anytime, anywhere, Joey's more than up for the job. He'll get thrown around, zip-cuffed, dumped or chased. In June, he dyed his hair black so that he'd look more Middle Eastern for the drill up at Fort Lewis.  He's purchased his own weapons and gear, despite having limited means to do so. He'll go through anything that's required of him to meet our mission objective.

Alpha Company came home from Iraq last time with no KIA's. We're going to do everything we can to ensure that happens again in 2010. Joey's commitment since that moment in March has been total. He's an inspiration to me. Watching him out there, throwing his heart into every iteration despite the weather, his own aches & pains, working brutal hours and getting little down time makes me realize that I'm part of something unique. It is not every day you can gather a group of civilians like Joey together and weld them into a united entity where abuse is a rite of passage and the dedication required is absolute.

In August, my wife and will will celebrate our 15th wedding anniversary. Joey, our Irreverent Reverend, will preside at our vow renewal ceremony. We may have met only a few months ago, but Joey Fugate's heart is so big I feel like we're long-lost friends. No, not friends. Brothers.

Mark Farley: XO of the 973rd COB

  Mark Farley and I have lived parallel lives for twenty-two years and didn't know it. I grew up in California and came to Eugene to go to the U of O in 1986. Mark also started at the U of O in 1986. We both married women we met at the school, and both of us got married a day apart in August, 1993 while the Grateful Dead was in town. That caused chaos for our guests, and great amusement to my combat veteran grandmother, who sat and watched the street traffic before my wedding with a big smile on her face.

Anyway, Mark Farley is a graphic designer and owns his own company. He lives just south of me, and though we've spent much time in the same area with similar interests, we didn't meet up until 2007. Both of us were running small airsoft groups for local kids. Both of us were trying to save some of our local "lost boys" by giving them a positive, team-building sort of hobby in which to participate. Didn't really work, but it did lead to us join forces.

Mark came to the 973rd in February, 2008, and his first drill was at Rilea where we spent the weekend trying to run Traffic Control Points. Hesitant at first, Mark soon threw his heart into the role when he saw the training value it provided the soldiers. Now, he sets the standard for the 973rd's role players, and also has a knack for using our airsoft weapons to considerable effect.

Honestly, there are few men I've met as dedicated to anything as Mark is to our group. He single-handedly maneuvered us through the complicated process of becoming a 501 C 3 non-profit corporation. He's provided structure, extremely good leadership, and always sets an example of professionalism, balanced with a great sense of humor. The group now has its own Farley-esque lexicon based on some of the things he's said during drill weekends. He has a knack for saying stuff in his Arabic accent that leaves us all howling for weeks afterward.

During the drills, Mark is a steady presence. I'm frequently whirlwinding around, storming about and barking orders. Mark keeps things running smoothly and sometimes serves as a much needed buffer when I'm in over-demanding mode. I get so focused on the importance of our roles, that I will frequently neglect some basic elements of leadership, like listening. Duh. That's where Mark comes into his own. He knows how to keep everything in balance, and he's always got the pulse of the group. He's also an incredibly astute observer of human nature. This gives him a rare, instinctive skill for sizing people up, gauging their strengths and weaknesses. He'll then put together a plan for that person which maximizes the former and minimizes the latter.

Groups like ours frequently implode due to personality conflicts, or questionable leadership. Mark's our secret weapon here. His insight into our own group's dynamics has headed off every potential issue. Stuff that needs to be defused gets done quickly and in a constructive, positive way that always strengthens us. He's calm and thoughtful, where I'm loud and instinctive. We're the yin and yang of the 973rd, and there's no way the organization could have grown and thrived without him.

I didn't have many friends here in Oregon before I met the 2-162 and formed the 973rd to support it. With Mark, I've found a kindred spirit. He's the kind of friend you can sit and talk with until dawn and come away uplifted just to have had the chance to hear his opinions and see how his mind works. He's honest and has that rarest of human abilities: clarity of thought and vision.

At the same time, he's a gentle, profoundly kind man who has overcome much in his own life and has now developed a connection with our National Guard Soldiers that has changed his views significantly. He's the best of us, and being around him makes us all not just better at our roles on drill weekends, but better human beings. At least, that's what he does for me. And that is what makes him a true leader.

For more on Mark, please visit www.973cob.org

The 973rd Civilians on the Battlefield

  While researching The Devil's Sandbox, the book I wrote on the 2nd Battalion, 162nd Infantry, one of the issues that came up time and time again was the lack of information the unit received on insurgent tactics and behavior prior to the deployment. What information that was passed down to the men at Fort Hood turned out either to be incorrect, or had long since overcome by events.

In country, the Volunteers learned that the tactical picture in Iraq underwent major evolutions every few months. Insurgent groups would initiate a new tactics, the Coalition forces would respond to that tactic with some sort of a counter, then the insurgents would evolve a new method in response. The situation was fluid and dynamic. Thrown into the mix was the nature of the different insurgent groups. The Al Qaida-supported Sunni cells tended to be more competent and effective. They also were the ones who used su icide bombers as a standard tactic. The Shia militia groups, most notably the Mahdi Militia, were poorly trained but incredibly brave. They generally did not use suicide bombing as a tactic.

With the battalion going back into combat in 2009, a small group of us civilians approached Alpha Company, 2-162 to see if they could use a real-world based OPPOSING FORCE (OPFOR) for drill weekend field exercises. In May 2007, three of us joined Alpha Company at the Goshen State Police Range where we populated the shoot-house and got our brains hammered in by the likes of Staff Sergeant Hambright and SFC Berjurkland.

It was freaking awesome. I was sore, sick and battered for three weeks afterwards, but all of us realized we'd found a way to provide material support for our local troops.

By the end of 2007, I had written or started two more books on Iraq and had built a file on known insurgent TTP's (Tactics Techniques and Procedures). We started to use actual real-world insurgent tactics. To stay atop the evolution in country, we established contact with Soldiers and Marines who were either still in the Sandbox, or had just returned. They gave us a wealth of enemy tactical information, which we applied against Alpha Company, and later the rest of the 2-162. We continue to gather and employ new tactical information so that we can recreate the current-real world conditions during drill weekends as much as possible..

From these roots, the 973rd COB (Civilians on the Battlefield) was born. We are now a non-profit corporation and our numbers total about thirty men and women, of which about twenty are available any given weekend. We hail from all walks of life and have a wide array of political views and personal backgrounds. We are all united by one objective: To prepare those who fight.

I have never known a more dedicated and determined group of civilians. In January, the 973rd endured 37 straight hours in snow and rain. They got soaked to the skin, spent hours in the dark that Saturday night lying in ambush for Charlie Company's patrols before racing south to Eugene to finish the weekend in the Goshen shoot-house with Alpha. At Rilea the following month, the 973rd ran through 2-162's Traffic Control Point lane in rain and snow again. The COB's got soaked. Bethany Jones (who is soemthing more than a mere mortal male) got dumped face down in gravel by Bravo Company and ended up with bruised ribs. She kept going. The commitment the 973rd displays is total. We will go anywhere, do anything, get our bodies pummeled, dumped and dropped for any length of time if it helps prepare Soldiers for combat.

To help better support the 2-162, our members have spent thousands of dollars on equipment. We   have acquired highly upgraded Soviet-style airsoft weapons--AK-74's, AK-47's, RPK's and RPG's. We've built our own IED simulators that do not explode, but unleash sirens. We have constructed sucide vests, bombs for VBIED's (IED's hidden in a vehicle) and purchased our own clothing to mirror what Al Qaida Iraq and the Mahdi Militia wear when engaged in battle. To date, we've spent almost $20,000 of our own money to support our mission.

Most recently, four members of the 973rd supported the Oregon State Police's Mobile Response Team during a week at Camp Rilea. The MRT is designed to be a rapid-deployment force to handle crowd control and riot situations. We role-played timber protesters and ended up getting tear gassed, grenaded, shot with pepper balls and rubber shotgun-style pellets. Overall, it was an outstanding week and the 973rd shined once again.

For more information on the 973rd, please see our website: www.973cob.org