What's up world. I'm back in the blogpit. Hold on hold on hold on. Pause. Let's take a moment or two to really appreciate the amount of wit it took to just gracefully concatenate of the words blog and cockpit out of no where. I'm so freaking clever.
So last time I rambled for what seemed like hours about something to do with DLX and Field Training. All necessary shit to include in my life's documentation. I apologize if it was a shitty read, my shoulder was killing me so I took some pain meds and long story short my literary capacity wasn't exactly at full-scale deflect. The good news is that I get to attempt to redeem myself with today's post; the bad news is I took more pain meds so it may be more of the same.
I think last time I promised I was going to tell you more about DLX. More specifically, the plan was to tell you about some of the fairly amusing stories. My drug-induced attention span is really the limiting factor as far as the quality of anything I put out right now, so bare with me and understand I'm trying my hardest (something that 75% of my professors are just completely fucking incapable of doing). So with that, let's dive right in.
When most people think of Fort Knox, they think of one of the most fortified buildings on Earth, a massive fleet of tanks practicing convoys through miles of MOA, America's most high-tech combat training simulation facilities, or whatever else your average educated person has seen on Modern Marvels in the past 20 years. The base's reputation is similar to something like Alcatraz. It's just one of those places that has a rather fierce impression on the public; so much so that the term "Fort Knox" has become a pretty common cliche.
It's safe to say you've probably heard someone exaggerating the power and security of something, nonchalantly using Fort Knox as an exact synonym to describe the ridiculous measures you're willing to go to to protect something, typically something really stupid. (E.g. "Someone stole my sandwich right out of the break-room fridge again. I'm done playing games with Professor Five Fingers. We're at DEFCON 1 now. My lunchbox is on Fort Knox status. Maximum security 24/7/365. Starting tomorrow all shields are going all the way up. Step 1: zip-tie the zipper on my lunchbox. Let's see Sargent Shithead steal my food now. Checkmate bitch.") It all clearly shows that Fort Knox has figured out the whole Public Affairs of establishing the base as a high-priority NFA (not fucking around) zone. Like I said, pretty much every average person thinks of it as this bad-ass military super-complex.
Then there's the POC at Det 290. All we think of when we hear "Fort Knox" are shitty barracks with some sewage problems easily identifiable by smell, a depressing and embarrassing attempt at a 'club' (which becomes even sadder when you realize it's the best option you have to get your drink on at Fort Knox), and poorly maintained training equipment. Oh, and gold. We still think of the gold too; I can't say we don't still respect that fortress—the vault's always gonna be cool as hell. But with the exception of the Bullion Depository, the occasional Humvee or Apache you may see, and some of the weapon simulators, Fort Knox is kind of an armpit compared to the somewhat high standard Air Force officers tend to develop. I really hate bashing the other branches but honestly I'm being pretty optimistic by saying it's only "kind of" an armpit. And I pretty much speak for everyone who's been to an Air Force base and Fort Knox in the same year.
It's not without reason though. The intellectual, classy, and more professional breed of officers that make up the Air Force are used to the Air Force bases. The Air Force typically design the bases to match the attributes of the smart and classy population living there. This works very nicely for us in the Air Force. But unfortunately for soldiers, the Army bases also match the culture of the people, which I have personally found to be a little higher in the physical and manly column and a little lower in the classy and cunning column. Air Force bases pretty closely resemble that really nice gated neighborhood in the affluent side of town that has like three golf courses and a country club, while Army bases seem like that part of the city where there's more tattoo parlors than banks. The Army bases are like that part of the city where in the event you have to drive through it for some reason, you make sure you don't take your Audi because of the overly abundant potholes. Fort Knox is no different to an airman.
But that's enough on the unfortunate level of appeal Fort Knox provides to us pompous bitches in the Air Force. It was a long weekend and we ended up spending 3/4ths of DLX cold and wet and wondering what the hell we were doing there since the reason we all committed to Air Force instead of Army was so we'd never have to put up with that shit soldiers do their whole life. Luckily Fort Knox was saving the best for last and gave me some really great fodder to blog about.
Our final training session was in the EST facility, which is a big place with a lot of toys to get soldiers who are going into infantry to get some practice outside of combat as effectively and affordably as possible. EST stands for Engagement Skills Training, which in is just a more structured name for practicing and perfecting the art of blowing shit up. The EST program at Fort Knox is actually one of the more intense weapons simulator the US military uses.
It's actually been on documentaries and Military/History Channel more than once. I haven't looked into it myself but apparently it's America's most expensive and technologically advanced weapons training simulator. I was pretty surprised when I saw it on Modern Marvels and saw on T.V. a demonstration of the Mk 19 fully-functional mockup—the same exact one I've used in past DLX's to blow the turban off of some virtual Taliban bad guys. Twenty-first century grenade launchers aren't exactly small or quiet, a Mk 19 will fire off six explosive boom balls a second and anything and anyone within a half a mile is completely certain to be obliterated if the gunman chooses to do so. Needless to say it's pretty damn cool.
Sometime between March 2013 and March 2014 congress shelled out a cool million dollars on an even newer toy, and get this, they were gracious enough to send us through some training ops. It's called DSTS or Dismounted Soldier Training System. It's basically a virtual reality machine like one that you see in movies, except that DSTS was real life and it worked and most importantly we got to play with it! It was just like you would imagine a virtual reality system to be like; you strapped sensors and a backpack holding a 20lb super computer, then you have a weapon such as an M16 that is all rigged out to be just like a real rifle, and the last piece of equipment that really makes it like the stereotypical virtual reality suit is the helmet with the visor that flips down over your eyes. So then you stand on this black rubber circle and move around just like you would in real life except you just a joystick to walk.
Unfortunately I didn't get the opportunity to play Robocop because my shoulder would've made it too difficult. However, I ended up doing something way more fun. A control center running the whole network of supercomputers was set up in the corner of the room with some army-style portable desks. After a little joking around with the sim-tech and making friends with him, the Wing King (Cadet Garnick) and I earned some playtime on the admin computers.
To help you imagine the setup, picture a big open space with nine rubber pads each holstering a future-tech soldier virtually conducting combat. Then off to the side were some green desks, servers, and three more computer stations with at least two monitors each. The sim-tech was wired into his little command center that looked like the virtual cockpit of something nasty, and he graciously let Garnick and I hook into the silicon-battlefield and go nuts with guns and rocket launchers.
After a little poking around, we—two experienced electrical engineering students—figured out how to tamper with the user interface and make shit happen in the simulation. It started with simply granting us god-like abilities such as teleportation and immortality, but we soon became bored with the minor hacks and more experienced with the programming. One thing lead to another and within an hour the poor, confused, and blindsided GMC cadets who were suited up and in the game were barraged with levitating camels, superhero Taliban, and Humvees falling from the sky; all of which were controlled directly by the role models in the command module.
You can imagine the humor behind a bunch of college kids coming to the world's most advanced combat training system, learning how to use it to fuck with 200s, and doing just that. They don't seem to include much about that on the History Channel. Anyway, another storybook to archive in the National Library of Decker's Life. I'm sure it will be told over many scotches during length layovers to come. Hopefully you enjoyed it. Now I gotta get to work on this Programming Assignment. Until next time...
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