Confessions of A DICK: JRTC, or Satan's Armpit

Any Airborne Dedicated Individual Combat Killer (ADICK) worth their salt has been there twice.

Image via the balance

Ah, the Joint Readiness Training Center at Ft. Polk, Louisiana. If you thought New Jersey was Satan's armpit, you thought wrong; it's definitely this place. Ft. Polk was, once upon a time (at least the way I heard it told to me) the training center for Special Operatons; the so-called Tigerland that we always had to drive through in order to get to a training area or back to the crappy tents we called home for a couple weeks before spending a month in the Box. Now it's where the Special Airborne Forces go to pretend to kill people with blanks and pretend explosions.

The actual installation is small and consists of main post, where an honest-to-God post exchange is along with the railhead where trucks and other materials are brought in, and the training areas outside the Box. The Box is what we call the gigantic span of empty training space dotted with mock-up villages, firebreaks, and an ad-hoc landing strip that doubles as a dropzone for us high-speed Airborne paratroopers. It's purpose? To prepare high-speed soldiers for deployments around the world, engaging the enemy and winning the hearts and minds of the local populace. A dedicated team of civilians that live nearby serve as roleplayer stand-ins for civilian populations, and there is an entire unit dedicated to playing the opposing force. So rather than blasting away at trees, soldiers get to actually pretend to fight real enemies! Enemies that are far better trained and accustomed to the battlefield than they are, but that's pretty much like real life.

Both times I went there it was ungodly hot. Louisiana has never been a picnic in terms of heat, but I swear it seems like this place had its own space heater floating around in the sky, pointed directly down at us. Wild horses ran around the box, leaving huge piles of literal horseshit in their wake, and there were bugs I've never seen anywhere else trying to feast on my flesh and my vital fluids. The last time I did a rotation out there, I ended up with boils and blisters from bug bites that somehow managed to happen under my socks in the cuff of my boots - after spending just about all of my time in the driver's seat of a humvee. Figure that one out.

Look at this magnificent paratrooper! If you haven't had a Polk-stache, you haven't lived.

If it wasn't ungodly hot, there were cold snaps that made me want to die. My first rotation through, we had a live-fire training exercise for the brigade that we trained for on a course that was set up on the opposite side of the airstrip from where the Box was located. With it having been as hot as Satan's freaking armpit, I figured I would be fine with just my woobie (it's what we call poncho liners, cause you woobie cold without it! Get it?! I laugh because I'm dead inside!). Boy was I wrong. It went from being a billion degrees to being colder than a witch's tit, and we were stuck in a cooling tent with the A/C stuck on full blast. The four days we were out there I managed to sleep for about an hour total, because I couldn't stop shivering long enough to sleep more than that. Immediately after that, it was hot as hell again. I hate Louisiana.

Which brings me to my next point about JRTC rotations: the month-long deployment readiness exercise is basically a giant version of laser tag. Using what's called MILES gear (just a fancy name for some laser sensors your wear on your brain bucket and your torso) and blanks, you simulate live fire and can simulate receiving injuries in combat. The problem, aside from how the MILES gear will activate if you stand in the sun too long (apparently the sun is a friendly with a machine gun and a thirst for killing its allies), is that it's not a game. The Army has effectively taken laser tag, which is one of the most awesome things you can do with your friends, and turned it into one of the most drawn-out, excruciating exercises you'll ever experience. In typical fashion, the Army has taken something awesome and turned it into absolute garbage.

That's okay, paratrooper. Life is garbage; embrace the Suck.