Week 12- Urban Operations

Hollywood

Urban Operations was the funnest week during IBOLC, we got to bust in doors and look like Hollywood commandos clearing rooms, killing bad guys and high fiving after words. I had never cleared a room let alone done any urban operations, so I was ready to learn. Due to the 4th of July holiday it was a short week and they crammed it all into 5 days. The first two days were instruction and they built up from what each individual in the stack does all the way up to how to clear a complicated multi level building with a platoon. Most of my instructors had served in Iraq multiple times, so they have cleared a few buildings, and you could tell that this was their bread and butter. Everyone was very enthusiastic and training and rehearsals went great. The third and fourth days were 24hr operations and I got my first taste of 48+ hours without sleep. I was again asked to be RTO for a few missions and again I learned more than I would have if I would just been on the line. The missions had a real life feel to them and everyone took them serious, the whole week was a great success until the last mission, when everyone was tired. To briefly set it up, we had two of our platoon members that were taken by the enemy and our mission was to retrieve them. We had to leave one squad to guard a gigantic 3-story building and then take the remaining squads to conduct the mission. Well after securing our MIA's we preceded back to the building were our security squad had been sleeping. The OPFOR took over the building and we were in for a rude surprise, we had to retake the building, with only 20 guys. It was kind of a disaster, but we got our first taste of the repercussions for falling asleep on duty. 

The week went great and I learned so much about the urban environment and the added risk of operating inside it. In an urban environment it is 3 dimensional and you have to be looking everywhere and planning for the capabilities the enemy can gain from it.