Posted on Jun 23, 2015
For those stationed at Fort Irwin, 11th ACR, what was a typical month for an infantryman?
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I'm pcsing here soon and want to hear what the Fort Irwin infantryman were doing while they were out here. I'm aware there's OPFOR rotations (18 days), foreign vehicles, and miles of desert. Leaders feel free to lend your voice to this discussion.
11B: Infantryman
Fort Irwin
OPFOR
Leadership
Posted >1 y ago
Responses: 17
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Irwin is the best kept secret in the Army if you are compatible with or can adapt to the isolation. Successive OPFOR training missions conducted simultaneously alongside of BLUFOR training missions increase the stress level of Iron Horse and Eagle Horse soldiers. The stress level for all training missions resemble a pulse on a medical monitor. I spent some of my long recovery weekends on the beach in Coronado, Santa Barbara, Temecula, and the Bay Area. On the long weekends I did not travel, I spent hours in the Barnes and Noble in Victorville or just driving in the desert. The drive to Vegas is particularly memorable: for miles the brown desert consumes four lane I 15. Stop in Baker at the Mad Greek for a gyro and a milkshake, play cards in Primm, and continue on into Vegas for the shows. You'll see I 15 open up a few miles after Primm and the road descends into Sin City. It's kinda awesome. For someone like me, that drive never gets old.
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CPT (Join to see)
I used to hear stories about the pass that connected the box to the Mad Greek! I think command cracked down on humvee traffic going to and from.
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CPT (Join to see)
SSG (Join to see) - I didn't actually have command at Irwin, but thanks for the vote of confidence!
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1LT (Join to see)
CPT (Join to see) sir the pass you're referring to, I'm pretty confident the OC/Ts still utilize. Don't know what else could be happening that far East on non-live fire training days
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SSG Greg Miech
California is also building a railway from LA to Vegas as the highway is well clogged.
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The rotations as I remember there is RSOI week and that is getting everything ready, then rollout either Thursday or Friday. The first week of training is all STX so there is opportunity to come in at night, also when there is a Suspension of Battlefield Effects (SOBE). The second week is force on force and out the whole time. 1/11 and 2/11 switch off as leads for the rotation but augment from the non-lead unit. So it's 19 days straight of work then a 2 day weekend come back for 2.5 days to do recovery and such then off for the 4 day. There are 10 rotations a year, nothing in December and either June or July. Fort Irwin is 35 miles from the nearest "town" but 70 miles from the nearest REAL town. LA, Las Vegas, and San Diego are all roughly 2-3 houra away. San Francisco is 6-7 hours. In the early spring you can go to the beach in San Diego or go snowboarding at Big Bear. You have the best of everything as long as you are willing to travel. Living on post isn't bad, I could go a month on one fill up if I never left post. In the end it is what you make of it that will make you happy or miserable. Hope this helps.
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1LT (Join to see)
Many of the RTU BDEs coming through now skip the CO/BN level STX and roll straight into Force-on-Force. When that happens it's usually 11 days of FoF followed by a couple days of live fire. All depends on the BDE's desired training intent, we're here to support whatever/wherever/and for however long.
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I was stationed there for 35 months (not as an 11B) it is in the middle of nowhere. You have to drive 30 minutes to the nearest town (Barstow), an hour drive to the nearest mall (Victorville), 1.5 hours from Las Vegas and 2.5 hours to LA. Either you like it or hate it and make sure that you have either Verizon, AT&T or Sprint cell phone service.
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1LT William Clardy
SSG (Join to see), I remember tracking the daily temps in Barstow during my first stint in Baghdad, and there was never more than a degree (maybe two) of difference between the highs in Barstow and Baghdad.
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SGT Thomas Lucken
1LT William Clardy - In 1991, I got to go TDY to the big desert from Irwin for a month!
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1LT William Clardy
SSG (Join to see), also remember that the 2.5 inches of average annual rainfall tends to come in a single storm. I remember sandbagging the entrances to the barracks to keep them from flooding that day.
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LTC Jason Mackay
SSG (Join to see) if you live on post, I would manage your wife's expectations now, especially if she is from LA County or Northern CA, San Bernardino even. Unless she is from the Yermo-Barstow-Daggett metroplex or the Irwin burbs of Victorville-Hesperia-Apple Valley there will be some system shock. Once you cross the Phase Line of the Cajon Pass, different worlds. Not bad, just different. My wife is from Hesperia, so they will never send me back there.
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I have never been and I heard that you either love it or you hate it, there is no middle ground. A lot of people I know can only provide experiences based off of NTC rotations. My only advice is to perform well in duty and get of post when you can and get involved with the community and make the best of it any way you can.
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Beware of Goldstone Tracking Station while on night manuvers, it ruins your night vision!
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I loved being at Fort Irwin. I enjoyed it more than my current station in Hawaii. You can drive 2.5 hours to Vegas, or 2 hrs to L.A. when you have your 4day each month. I did not mind it being away from everything. It kept me grounded and able to concentrate on the task at hand: Training! What is great is the structure Fort Irwin has. SOPs were followed and the training you did was precise. Not this "Do as I say, Not as I do" or "because I outrank you" attitude when it is not procedure or in keeping with standards. Of course, I have not been there in 4 years so I hope it did not change. It is a small community and everything is easily accessible. You can learn new things every day from the training. And while you do have that extreme dry heat in the summer (reaching 120F), it will get just as cold in the winter and the wind will pick up to 40/50mph in 40 degree temps. I miss those run days in pt shorts....
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LTC Jason Mackay
There were a handful of SOPs and standing orders that were instant death, like possessing a "shaved key" or stealth killing of a BLUFOR (miles without a weapon signature). These could reflect in OER/NCOERs as integrity problems.
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LTC Jason Mackay
SSG (Join to see) hopefully they go back to training the OPFOR on threat doctrine. We used to fight like the people we were aiming to kill. It was just a really cool thing to learn. It made be a better leader as I could "red team" what my unit was doing when I went back to the regular Army.
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LTC Jason Mackay
Not really. After learning the threat doctrine, TTPs and operational concepts, and actually practicing them I understood how we would be attacked and took realistic measures to prevent it. Red teaming is active, AAR is all over but the crying.
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When I left in 1991, was still 177th BDE! 11th ACR was still in Fulda Gap!
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1LT William Clardy
SGT Thomas Lucken, I got there in May 1983 when I DEROSed from Germany and left in July 1984. When I first got there, our barracks were in the Quonset huts on the south side of the cantonment area. They must have reflagged the infantry sometime after I left, because I've still got a Polar Bear unit crest or three floating somewhere in a nightstand drawer or some box downstairs.
I always thought that whoever selected the 6/31 INF for OPFOR duty when they were standing up the NTC must have had a wry sense of humor -- the 31st Infantry Regiment got its nickname by serving as part of the AEF Siberia, securing the Trans-Siberian Railway during the early years of the Russian Revolution.
I always thought that whoever selected the 6/31 INF for OPFOR duty when they were standing up the NTC must have had a wry sense of humor -- the 31st Infantry Regiment got its nickname by serving as part of the AEF Siberia, securing the Trans-Siberian Railway during the early years of the Russian Revolution.
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SGT Thomas Lucken
1LT William Clardy - My first rotation there was Oct 1984, was shocked in 1990 how much construction was done to the place in 6 years!
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SGT Thomas Lucken
SFC Mark Merino - I was actually with Ops Group, but worked with the Scouts alot in 1-52nd......... :-)
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1LT William Clardy
You should have seen what got built before your first rotation, SGT Thomas Lucken.
Did they still have the MTLBs when you arrived as permanent party? Being the MTLB NCOIC for C 6/31 was one of the most fun (and exhausting) jobs -- up all night probing the blue force positions, cruising across the desert at 50-odd... er, a *highly* aggressive 19.9 mph, crossing anti-tank ditches "Dukes of Hazzard"-style, and then providing the dismounts for the morning attack. It was as close to being a mech infantry platoon leader as a buck sergeant could get, with the benefit of having some of the highest-performance APCs to ride -- as I recall, standard MTLBs are powered by a detuned T54 engine hooked to a 6-speed manual transmission with enough torque to spin the tracks from a standing start, and the maintenance team got clocked doing 54 mph cross-country in one.
Did they still have the MTLBs when you arrived as permanent party? Being the MTLB NCOIC for C 6/31 was one of the most fun (and exhausting) jobs -- up all night probing the blue force positions, cruising across the desert at 50-odd... er, a *highly* aggressive 19.9 mph, crossing anti-tank ditches "Dukes of Hazzard"-style, and then providing the dismounts for the morning attack. It was as close to being a mech infantry platoon leader as a buck sergeant could get, with the benefit of having some of the highest-performance APCs to ride -- as I recall, standard MTLBs are powered by a detuned T54 engine hooked to a 6-speed manual transmission with enough torque to spin the tracks from a standing start, and the maintenance team got clocked doing 54 mph cross-country in one.
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Four years in the OPFOR, 94-98. Was loggie not an infantryman. A lot has changed. I ended up learning a lot compared to peers
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SSG (Join to see)
S&T '09 to '11, 23 rotations, and loved going out to the box 3 weeks a month. I would go back anytime.
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LTC Jason Mackay
1LT William Clardy The road had not improved between 1984 and 1994, nor 1994-1998, nor 2001 or 2006 when I was back for a visits.
Total casualties in 1996 or 1997 were over 11 between rotations and Fort Irwin Rd. You likely had it tougher, especially with how Spartan Ft Irwin itself was in those early days after the reactivation of the post in 1981.
Total casualties in 1996 or 1997 were over 11 between rotations and Fort Irwin Rd. You likely had it tougher, especially with how Spartan Ft Irwin itself was in those early days after the reactivation of the post in 1981.
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1LT William Clardy
LTC Jason Mackay, I have to disagree with you. I know it had been largely repaved by the summer of '85, and I'm not sure when they rerouted it to intersect with the interstate instead of ending at 1st Street in Barstow (there was a Wenchell's Doughnuts on Main Street which served as a pickup point for the post shuttle bus).
There were a lot of little white crosses along that road, and my recollection is that a minor fuss was made when the "Days since last traffic death" counter made it over 40 once while I was there.
There were a lot of little white crosses along that road, and my recollection is that a minor fuss was made when the "Days since last traffic death" counter made it over 40 once while I was there.
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LTC Jason Mackay
Not arguing with the Death toll. They still had the graphic accident photos from your era when I took the defensive driving course on post.
Other than the I-15 link up, the craptassticness of the road surfacing and lanes available nearly unchanged. Afghanistan had better roads
Other than the I-15 link up, the craptassticness of the road surfacing and lanes available nearly unchanged. Afghanistan had better roads
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It depends. We don't have 18 day rotations. It's 14 days. 1/11 & 2/11. We get a 4 day after each rotation.
Do you have a sponsor?
Do you have a sponsor?
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LTC(P) (Join to see)
Later this year they are going to 18 day rotations. Sometime late this summer's going to be the first one. There's talk about doing few rotations in a year but having them be longer to save money.
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SGT Thomas Lucken
When I was there, it was 3 days prep, 14 day rotation, 3 days recover, and 4 days off in between! 1990......
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1LT William Clardy
That 3-week-plus cycle sounds like what I remember back in 1983-84 -- except for the 4 days off part...
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LTC Jason Mackay
SGT Thomas Lucken I remember the same rotation schedule...so much so that we stopped using calendar days. You ask some one what day it is: "Training Day 6" or for us maintainers "4113".
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Spent 4 1/2 years in 04-08 with Theater Support Command and loved it. Part of that time 11th was down range. All the comments have been right on.
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