(22AUG2008)As I am deploying as an individual (and not with a unit), I have to go through CRC at FT BENNING in southwest Georgia. CRC is a widely dreaded part of deploying, and rightfully so. All of the paperwork involved in clearing upwards of 300 people (a mix of military, military civilians, and contractors) to deploy each week is daunting.
CRC is a weeklong, highly-structured series of instructive briefings, theater-specific training, form-filling, medical tests, and equipment issuance. We each have a checklist which must be filled by the end of the week, and the CRC staff march us (often literally) from station to station throughout the week to insure that we collect the necessary signatures, stamps, and stickers.
I check into CRC a little after 0900 on Saturday morning and am assigned a bunk in a room with two bunk beds. I’m issued linens which consist of sheets starched almost to woodenness, a blanket that was pulled right out of the “extra scratchy” bin (my father refers to these as horse blankets), and a plastic pillow filled with what I am convinced is silly putty.
I share a room with a soldier and another military civilian, and I am envious of their ability to make their beds so that you could bounce a quarter off of them. I make my bed to the best of my limited ability; you could probably bounce a balloon off mine if you got it at the right angle.
Each day at CRC begins with a formation (or roll call; we use the terms interchangeably) where the cadre tell us what we’re doing, where to go, and what to bring. We then have various formations throughout the day after meals or other breaks, times when we all regroup and start the next round of processing.
One of the first orders of business is to get fitted for body armor
and uniforms. As I have been issued armor and uniforms for other deployments, I’m told to bring mine with me and to let supply know that I don’t need another set. I lug a full duffel with me throughout the morning and into the supply room. There, I unpack it and show the clerk what I have, which is not everything I should have, because I have shipped some of it ahead to Afghanistan.
The supply clerk is distressed that I don’t have everything with me, and tells me “We are required to give you this gear because we must know you have it, but we cannot give it to you because we know you already have it.” I am dumbstruck by this fine example of Army logic and she tells me I can’t clear CRC in this condition. The workaround is to have my supervisor write a memo which will circumvent these requirements altogether. I write the memo and email it to my supervisor, slipping the term “crotch plate” into the list of armor I was issued in the past. My boss signs it and emails it back to me.
We sit through medical briefings, transportation briefings which don’t apply to me because I’m not flying with the rest of the CRC class, and finally a broad overview given by the battalion commander under whose command we fall while at CRC. She expresses her hope of getting us through the deployment process smoothly and in a timely manner but admits that “Hope is not a course of action” – one of my favorite Army aphorisms.
Many of us sit through 2+ hours of movies telling us how to handle ourselves in the event of our kidnapping, internment, and torture by terrorists. I have seen these videos multiple times (I recognize the host’s ugly ties), but because I have no proof that I’ve seen them, I am forced to suffer through them again. Despite all the good advice of the videos, there is widespread agreement not to allow oneself to be taken alive, given what the enemy has done to American prisoners in the past.
We spend an entire day learning how to perform urgent medical care in the event of lost limbs or massive bleeding. We are taught how to assess wounded personnel and what injuries we should address first. We work with the compresses, the tourniquets, and the bandages found in soldiers' first aid packets. It's definitely a part of the training we hope never to use, but better to know it and not need it than the converse.
One of the benefits of medically clearing at my home station is that it makes that part of the process at CRC much easier. We bus over to the “MedShed” and while there’s some waiting for the nurses and doctors at each station, I fly through my appointments as they check the paperwork I bring with me.
The only treatment I receive is the smallpox vaccine, something I’d deftly avoided through my first 5 deployments. The smallpox vaccine consists of 15 pricks in my arm, several weeks of keeping the area covered, a scab that I have to treat like toxic waste, and the possibility that it “won’t take” the first time. The nurse pricks my left arm and then tells me not to sleep on that side for several weeks; I almost always sleep on my left side.
I proceed to get ill through the rest of the afternoon and night, telling myself it’s unrelated to the smallpox vaccine.
We’re sent through a gauntlet of paperwork, visiting representatives for finance, legal, the chaplain’s office, and we verify that we have the correct ID cards for our deployment before we once again list beneficiaries, and who should be called in the event of our serious injury.
We’re shuttled to CIF, a large warehouse where we’re given our complete issue of military gear – uniforms, duffel bags, armor, helmets, sleeping bags, etc.
I already have my gear from previous deployments, but I’m told I need to exchange my old helmet for a new one and I’ve asked for cold-weather boots, something I didn’t need in Iraq but which may come in handy in Afghanistan. These variations from the norm cause hiccups in my processing, and I sit around with my old helmet in my lap for hours while CIF figures out how to handle me. Sometimes it doesn’t pay to be special.
On the last day of CRC, we wake up extra early (0530 formation) and are issued side-arms for the day. Though I won’t carry a weapon in theater, they teach us how to operate and maintain the M9 9mm handgun. We end up at the firing range and are given a magazine to shoot through at targets that pop up at various distances. They don’t tell us how we do, but I leave thinking I could adequately defend myself against an attack of plastic enemies who appear systematically at specific distances. I enjoy having a weapon strapped to my thigh all day, and I appreciate the weapon familiarization, but if the situation in Afghanistan ever devolves to the point where *I* have to fire a weapon, we’ve probably already lost the war.
CRC = CONUS Replacement Center
CONUS = CONtinental United States
CIF = Central Issue Facility
When traveling on official orders, one simply walks into a military terminal and signs up for a flight going where you need to go; if you miss it, you sign up for the next one. It’s oddly simplistic. On Friday, I check in for a flight into Bagram that boards around 1600 and leaves about an hour later. We’re on a C-15 cargo and med-evac plane; ours is carrying vehicles into Afghanistan and will carry wounded soldiers and other personnel back to Germany.
our flight. The other vehicle is a 4-wheel Cougar tied down at the end of the hold.
