Operation: Dugout!
Written by 1st Lt. Jonathan Bratten
Some more satire from Bratten, as
England winter...
So as some of you may have heard, there
was some snow in the northeast this past
weekend. Like 32 inches of it outside my
door. Being native to Ohio, not Maine, this
is not something I am accustomed to. I
fully expected a state of emergency to be
called and my Guard unit to call me up,
as was happening in Massachusetts where
the MA Guard kicked some serious...snow.
However, I had forgotten that I am in
a headquarters company rather than
a horizontal company, and there’s not
much use for a staff section or excel
spreadsheets when the snow is falling. So
sadly, this is not going to be a post about
the Maine Guard’s reponse to Nemo. But
just because I wasn’t on Soldier duty
didn’t mean I wasn’t on husband duty.
I could see from the several feet of snow
around our car (and the look on my
wife’s face) that a possible deployment
was looming. Which was too bad, as
FOB Couch was feeling pretty nice. I was
correct. I got the MOB orders from the
wife, put on my gear, did a few PCC/PCIs,
and headed off to wage war against the
deadly N.E.M.O-S (Named Enemy Made Of
Snow).
The enemy had six foot drifts, biting
winds, and seemed to be operating in
collusion with snow plows that would
reverse my progress. Using my valuable
training in the Military Decision Making
Process, I did a hasty Intelligence
revealed that I was facing enemy
obstacles that would need to be reduced
before I could declare victory, a perfect
task for an Engineer. Hearkening back to
my tr aining,
I recalled that the best way to breach
an enemy obstacle was through SOSRA:
Suppress, Obscure, Secure, Reduce, and
Assault. My attempts to suppress and
obscure the enemy were largely useless,
in that the snow itself was doing a pretty
good job of obscuration. My efforts being
enemy, and secured a position that by luck
was free of snow.
From there I was able to begin reducing
the obstacle.
This took about three hours. Snow seems
shovels of it, and even with my best
Sapper war face I was losing steam. A
quick boost of MWR occurred when I
realized I could stream Pandora, and that
bagpipe marches work well to shovel snow
to.
Finally the parking area was clear, and I
was able to make a last assault on the
left lining my driveway, compliments of
the snow plows. With night advancing, I
called for the QRF (Quick Reaction Force),
off the enemy. The OPFOR vanquished,
we redeployed to FOB Couch. Operation
Dugout was a success, and the mound of
snow in the driveway that is as tall as I
victory.
But checking the weather report, I see we
have snow forecast for this weekend. The
enemy advances.