Camp Buehring - Kuwait

After a few days of adjusting to the time difference we had our first real training evolution, HUMVEE Evacuation Training, held at nearby Camp Buehring. We boarded buses and traveled there in the afternoon. Since there were three sections of us and only two simulators, our section had to wait an hour and a half. Camp Buehring looked a lot like Camp Virginia only all the familiar components (port-o-lets, wet crappers, prefab buildings, etc.) were arranged differently only slightly reinforcing the concept we actually were, in fact, somewhere else. It did have a bigger BX/PX (Base Exchange) store. Informally rating a particular base or camp’s PX seems to be the yard stick of one’s relative level on the standard of living scale. In this case, Buehring rates higher than Virginia.

We reported back and took turns sitting in a HUMVEE simulator that pivoted along its central axis and that turned a full 180 degrees, simulating a vehicle that has completely flipped over. The regular passengers don’t have a problem, provided they are wearing their seat belts. It’s the vehicle’s gunner, who sits/stands in a turret who faces the most risk. He/She calls, “Rollover!” if the vehicle tips more than 25 degrees off axis and drops into the crew compartment. The rest of the passengers grab the gunner’s torso and legs accordingly during the rollover to keep them in place. We each got to perform the drill once. Although the simulator’s rate of turn was very slow it still managed to completely disorient us. Operating the HUMVEE’s doors upside and down and turned around was a lot more difficult than anyone thought. I hope this doesn’t happen to me. Still, the training was fun.