More Deployment Souvenirs - Part 1

The Stetson isn't the only accoutrement that can be earned while attached to a Cavalry unit. Another rite of passage is called a Spur Ride. The details behind a Spur Ride vary by unit, it isn't an official Army sanctioned event so it is up to the unit to come up with something. The driving force behind the Spur Ride is unit morale, team building, and a tie back to Cav history. The 167 Cav held a spur ride on the 18th of March, and I was lucky enough to participate.

Our team consisted of the 2 finest mail clerks in all of Iraq, Beans and Burnometer. Initially the Flecker was going to round out our team, but he got cold feet and backed out. In order to make up for the loss of a Specialist, we added 2 Captains to Team America. CPT Varejcka is our S4 (logistics) officer and CPT Wangler is in charge of the base defense projects like the new fence we are putting up and the new guard towers.

For TF Saber's spur ride, MAJ Teegerstrom wanted it to be training for what we do over here, so it was tailored for Iraq. There were 10 stations that we had to navigate as a team. They were: a timed ruck march, tire change on a Humvee, map reading, medical tasks, grenade throwing, radio operation, blue force tracker (the gps enabled computer system that we use to keep track of all of our guys), Cav history, and the senior spur holder station. We spent about a month prepping for each station so we could dominate each station like good staff Troopers should.

Here is the first batch of pictures from our day. Team America lining up to move out.

Map reading station.

3 man litter carry at the Senior Spur Holder station.

MAJ T giving a pep talk.

Team America changing the tire. I used my cat like quickness to hop into the trunk.

Weapons station. We had an M16, M9 pistol, M2 machine gun (.50 cal) and M240B machine gun completely dissembled in one big pile that we had to assemble in less then 6 minutes.

Putting the finishing touches on the 2 machine guns.

More pictures to follow in Part 2.