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A day in life of Delta Company's third platoon. Training for duty in the Middle East is a grueling and sometimes mind-numbing routine that toughens the body and spirit
The Series:
Reporter Rusty Dennen and Photographer Mike Morones spent three days in late August embedded with Delta Company's 3rd Platoon, a Fredericksburg National Guard unit headed to Kuwait as part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
SUNDAY: A day in training with Delta Company's 3rd Platoon. MONDAY: National Guard unit a cross-section of America. TUESDAY: Leading the troops in an evolving Virginia National Guard. Date published: 9/9/2007
RELATED: Road to war runs through Mississippi
By RUSTY DENNEN CAMP SHELBY, Miss.--At 4 o'clock in the morning, dense fog shrouds Base Camp Arrowhead like a ghostly veil. It's so hot and humid even the mosquitoes are noticeably absent. Two hours before the sun climbs over the horizon, 3rd Platoon prepares for another day of training. Some sit on the edge of their cots, heads in hands, trying to grab a few more minutes of sleep; others change their sweat-soaked T-shirts and briefs and pull on their khakis and heavy body armor. "Another day that's gonna suck," one soldier jokes. No one laughs. "Like 'Groundhog Day,'" another pipes up, referring to the movie in which Bill Murray relives the same day over and over. After getting into uniform, and toting packs and standard-issue M4 rifles, the men head over to the mess tent for a breakfast of eggs, hash browns, sausage, fruit, cereal, milk and coffee. There are no chairs; the soldiers eat at chest-high wooden tables because they don't have time to linger. Unlike most active military units, the National Guard is a cross section of America--people who left jobs, businesses, school and professions to serve their country. About a quarter of the men and women in the 3rd Battalion, 116th Infantry Regiment of the Virginia National Guard--which includes Delta Company's three platoons--hail from the Fredericksburg area. The rest are from armories around Virginia. Delta Company has no women in its ranks. Overnight, the pop-pop-pop of small-arms fire and throaty thump-thump of 50-caliber machine guns echoed around the camp, punctuated by the occasional boom of an explosion. Arrowhead houses about 600 National Guard soldiers from all over the country, including those from the Fredericksburg Armory. At 5:30, 3rd Platoon falls into formation near an old diesel Blue Bird bus that will take them to Hurricane Point, a forward operating base 20 minutes away on the immense expanse of fields and forest that is Camp Shelby Joint Forces Training Center. At 177,000 acres, the post is almost three times the size of Fort A.P. Hill in Caroline County.
Date published: 9/9/2007
God bless you guys and may you be safe. You all are today's heros. I am so full of admiration for you.
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