My son served in a maintenance unit in the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Cavazos (nee Hood). They participated in weeks-long exercises out in the brush of the maneuver areas regularly. They rotated through training cycles at the Fort Irwin National Training Center (NTC) for at least one month every year. NTC is in the middle of the Mojave desert in California, by the way.
At no point during his three years in that unit did anyone in his command deliver water or food to the soldiers out in the field. Nobody. Not even once. In three years.
Troopers died out in the desert. They died of dehydration and heat stroke.
And nobody in his command cared. Not the officers. Not the senior enlisted. Nobody. Not even once. In three years. It never even crossed their minds that they should.
One summer at NTC, one of the Observer-Controllers (think of them as referees) took pity on my son’s poor unit of maintainers, and ordered a water buffalo delivered to them. It arrived just before their Company Commander made one of his rare checks on them. “Just what I needed!” Then the Captain stripped down, opened it up, and took a bath in their only potable water source.
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| https://www.armyproperty.com/Equipment-Info/Pictures/Water-Buffalo.jpg |
The troops learned a valuable lesson from all this. They learned they had to fend for themselves. They learned to abandon their posts and drive into town to buy food and water. But most of all, they learned that their leaders were both incompetent and uncaring. Nobody cared if they lived or died. Not even once. In three years.
