ARMY EMBARRASSED IN AFGHANISTAN

You may be asking yourself why or how the Army was embarrassed while in Afghanistan and you may be puzzled that you have not heard about this incident. Well I am here to set the story straight, from the views of the Desert Cowboys.

The United States Military has the most technically advanced weapons systems in the world! Yet despite this fact we lacked basic skills soldier skills in controlling soldier’s tools.

S. Soldiers were ridiculed by their Afghan counterparts for lack of horsemanship. This is something that Cowboys and Cowgirls are very good at. Take a look at the Desert Cowboys, if given this mission there would have been no problem with controlling these animals.

Maj Steve Marks said, “Oh yeah. The Afghan soldiers really laughed.”

The ever imbedded memory led Maj Marks to ask Lt. Col. Mike McFarland to teach a class on the basics of horsemanship, giving a couple dozen Special Forces soldiers who have had little or no time or experience with horses.

Marks was also quoted as saying, “This (knowledge) creates credibility as you go in there and work with the locals, whose cultural background is with mules and horses.”

Part of the class teaches soldiers to never hit a horse and that they respond to a person’s confidence or fear depending on what they display. The class was then split into groups and some where taught how to pack a mule and the other half was taught to ride.

At this point we feel as if the entire class should have been taught how to do both. I don’t know many Cowboys who don’t know how to pack a team and how to ride themselves.

While it was a good chance for the Officers in FORT LEAVENWORTH, KANSAS to get some hands on training on the horses. This program should be spread throughout the entire United States Military. With many of the third world countries that we are deployed to still use horses and mules, we would not want a repeat of embarrassment for our country.

Is it a fact that we rely too much on technology that got us to become ridiculed? That and the overpopulation of the U.S. which is loosing more and more Farms and Ranches daily to sprawling cities. It will be a sad day when we no longer have any Farms or Ranches and our Great – Great Grandkids read about things like that and say wow wouldn’t that have been fun.

Basics needed:
Why is it important to know the basics, some may ask. Well let’s just start off with what are the basics.

• Finding Water
• Knowing how to Fish
• Knowing how to Hunt
• Being able to Ride a Horse
• Basic Knots Tying
• Basic Shelter Building
• Knowing how to Shoot a Weapon
• Knowing how to Use a Knife

Finding water is an important survival need. Not only do you need to know how to find water but also to be able to filter and clean the water that you do find is also as important. If people do not know the simple facts of Cactus water and streams and creeks then they could die from dehydration and be right next to water that is available. Don’t get me wrong, Cactus water tastes like soap and some may know that you can cut open a Cactus and drink it but when they do they may be so appalled by it that they don’t drink it. Cactus water will not hurt you one bit. You can also collect water by placing plastic in a dug out hole and securing the corners and putting a cup in the middle under the plastic, don’t forget to put a rock in the center to draw down the plastic towards the cup. The morning dew will fill up your cup and you will have a glass full by morning, in most areas. If you are so lucky as to find a creek or stream you are also lucky (insure you boil the water or filter it, due to bacteria present in the water) to be able to fish; which will take us to our next subject.

Knowing how to fish is a simple and easy way to procure food. You do not need a fishing pole with 20lbs test line on it to be able to fish. If you are around an area that has already had fishing you maybe able to find everything that are needed to fish with. Fishing-line lines the American shorelines and the shorelines of several other countries. If not cutting up a standard military shoelace will give you the string needed to do a makeshift fishing line. Whittling a piece of wood into a makeshift hook is easy enough. (Make the wood sharp on both ends, whittle out the center to tie your sting on. Thread on bait with the sting pulled length-wise with the wood. When you get a bite pull on the string and it will turn it sideways engorging the fish.) The next step, you would need to know how to clean fish and cook them this is just as important as being able to catch them.

Knowing how to hunt is another food procurement knowledge that is vital in survival. Being in the military you would think that everyone would be able to harvest an animal and be able to eat them. You may be surprised that most of the people in the Army have not killed anything in their entire life and some are appalled at the thought of it. Why you may ask are they in the Army? It may have been for college money, trying to leave home, or a slue of other reasons. Squeezing the trigger on an animal is easy, but if you do not have a working rifle, then what? You need to have a basic knowledge of snares and other makeshift traps to collect small game as well as how to make spears and drop pits (a dug out pit with spikes on the bottom of it).

Being able to Ride a Horse is also important. If caught behind enemy lines and you can get to a local village most of these third world countries that we are in will have several horses in a single town / village. The simple knowledge of how to saddle a horse and ride it will probably save you weeks if not months of travel time and will speed your rescue up. This is something I believe every single soldier in the Army should be trained on (this is not to say that anything mentioned within this article are the least most important, all of these things should be trained).

Basic Knot Tying is essential as well. If you can not tie a single knot it will prevent you from fishing, hunting, building of a shelter and many other things which can become quite important on your basic soldiering skills. Practice does not make perfect. I say that all the time. It is one of the misconceptions that the military puts into the brains of our young soldiers. It should be, “Practicing Perfectly makes Perfect”. If you practice in any subject wrong than you will always do it wrong. Practicing Perfectly even if at a snails pace will set the basic constant know-how and repetition in place. There is not enough space on a single page to show you all the knots out there and how to tie them. There are books dedicated to knot tying and you should have at least one of these books at your house.

Basic Shelter Building or a lean too is also a quick and easy way to get out of the elements and protect your body core temperature from dropping too low. Keeping yourself out of the sun, rain, snow or whatever element may be beating down on you is a key task to keeping yourself alive while in the wilderness or at combat behind lines. A simple lean too is placing a tarp or poncho over a fallen tree or you can “FELL A TREE” yourself.

Knowing how to Shoot a Weapon is key when going to war or when you are going to go out hunting. Practice slowly and through the year. Do not attempt to cram in a weeks worth of a range just prior to a big hunt, or just before deployments. If you can schedule ranges through the year it will keep you from jumping or flinching on the trigger squeeze. If you have fallen with your rifle and are behind enemies lines checking your zero will take a while. You can only shoot one round at each attempt, and then you must move location. (If you shoot several rounds at one time then an enemy can zero in on you before you can zero your weapon.) If you are hunting or just lost in the wilderness you can check your zero just like you are at the range.

Knowing how to Use a Knife for basic skills is also an important aspect of basic survival skills. The only advice I give all the time is buy the best knife you can with the money that you have and keep it as sharp as you can at all times. Using your knife to skin game (another handy skill to know) and then turning that skin into cord for lashing things together will also be on the top of your priority list. This will help you build something to carry gear, to help build shelters, to fish and to hunt. You can split wood and splinter wood to help make fire starting easier.

Being separated from your unit is a scary enough, but with some simple knowledge you can make it out alive and no worse for wear than when you went into it. I believe that if trapped behind lines I personally can survive and have no qualms about eating bugs or worms or anything else I may come across. Others in the Army may die due to the fact that they may not know what is poisonous and what is not or what other food items are available to them.

To learn more about Survival you can use: FM 3-05.70 (FM 21-76) or you can purchase any number of books available to you thru numerous book stores. I personally own over 20 survival books. Each one seems to lean one way or another towards specific key tasks. The writer is usually a Subject Matter Expert in one field or the other. Taking all of these and joining them together is what makes a great survivalist. Take the time to teach yourself the basics so you can survive if need be.

Cowboy Crew 2006 ©