Trooper for a Day

I always told Rebecca before we got married that being an army wife has some duties and responsibilities. However, it also has its "perks." Besides going to FRG meetings and tea get togethers that she "absolutely loves," she also got to earn her spurs at 1st Brigade's Trooper For A Day. The U.S. Cavalry has a long standing tradition where troopers go on a Spur Ride to earn their spurs as a symbolic right of passage. After earning one's spurs, the trooper can wear them on his boots. Silver spurs symbolize a completed spur ride, where gold spurs are earned in combat. I never thought that Rebecca would earn her spurs before me, but earn them she did.

The event took place on Saturday, January 10th. They day before was gorgeous, as was the day after. However, the day of the event was miserable. Despite the uninviting weather, Rebecca put on my uniform pants and braved the cold. When we arrived at 1st Cav HQ, all of the wives were signing in and getting their shirts and breaking up into squads. Rebecca was in Blackhawk's squad along with my company commander's mom and a five enlisted wives. There was a mass formation with a few high ranking people giving some introductory speeches and then the PT started.

The wives began warming up by jogging in place and then stretched out before the exercises started. I must say that Rebecca was awesome at push ups. All of the other wives were on their knees by the second set, but Rebecca did perfect push ups the entire time. She did regular push ups, wide arm push ups, and close hand push ups. I was amazed, as were some of the wives. The girls went on to do some side straddle hops (aka jumping jacks), the supine bicycle (aka supine tricycle), and flutter kicks, just to name a few. Once most of the girls were exhausted, the PT session ended and the squads moved on to their first stations.

Our first station was Battle Drill 6: Enter a building and clear a room. All of the wives here given real M4s and shown the basics on how to load a magazine and fire the weapon using blanks, of course. They practiced entering a room using a glass house and then did it for real in a wood house complete with terrorists to shoot at. Rebecca did a great job but the other girls kept running right in front of her while she was trying to shoot at bad guys. After all the terrorists were taken care of, we moved on to the next station: The Grenade Course!!!!!!

This course was to test the wives' ability to accurately throw grenades at targets. There were artillery simulators, machine gun fire simulators, and a whole bunch of smoke around the course used to provide a combat environment. The first target had two bad guys standing next to each other. Each wife got 1 or 2 points depending on how close they got the grenade to the bad guys. The next target was a machine gun bunker. The ladies had to run up to the bunker, pull out their grenade and throw it in the bunker. The last target was a trench with a bad guy in it. Although, there was so much smoke blowing in our faces, it was hard to tell what they were throwing the grenades at. Rebecca's team was one of the best at the grenade course.

The third lane was the marksmanship course and a timed disassemble and assembly of an M4. They had a line of terrorist looking bad guys wearing MILES gear. All of the weapons had lasers mounted on the barrels and every time a blank round was fired, a laser was shot at the receptors that the bad guys were wearing. Rebecca hit 10 out of 10 targets! After the shooting, the girls were then shown how to field strip an M4 and put it back together in under a couple minutes.

The last event was the medivac lane. The wives had to treat a wounded soldier's wounds and pull security while moving the casualty to a humvee ambulance. Then they sent up a request for medivac and waited for the Blackhawk to arrive. After it touched down, the girls carried the casualty up to the helicopter and loaded him in the back. I know that Rebecca is around helicopters all of the time so she was used to it, but that was easily the best part of my day! After the helicopter left, all of the wives assembled together for a final formation. During the formation the wives received certificates and pins showing that they earned their spurs. Rebecca's team was also awarded a coin for having the fastest time at the medivac lane! After the awards, the commander of 1st Brigade spoke and other people talked forever while we waited to be released. Everyone agreed that this was the most realistic part of the whole day.

After the wives were finally released, Rebecca and I headed for home, skipping out on the BBQ. We got home and I cooked some pancakes, eggs and sausage to warm us up after being frozen all day. And that is the story of how Rebecca earned her spurs.