Army Exercises

I am approaching a month now on Exercise in the Field with the army.  If you can imagine 5000 people and triple the amount of equipment, tearing up the prairie of Eastern Alberta, then you are doing well. We are in Wainwright Alberta and are trying some concepts out hoping to use them when the government next sends us out into the world.
 

Tent City

The time here has not been that bad, few days of cold and wet, but overall big sky days.  I was in dry tents for the most part, had good food and good people around me. When we arrived to our base camp it was an awesome sight to see tent city, miles of tents as far as the eye could see. We also had issues with long food line ups, not enough port a potties. Those that were operational often ran out of toilet paper, so I got into the habit of bringing my own.

 

Food lines

After a week at base camp doing preparations we went out the another site and set up camp. They made us do a road move that was 2 hours long when in reality it was only a 35 min drive. That is annoying as we could have used the time to set up and not have to do it in the pitch dark, especially when said field is full of a lot of cow patties!

A nod to Victoria Day

There were some mishaps along the way that resulted in a death and injuries and we had some really good times as well.  One particularly hot day, I bought ice cream to the troops in the Battalion.  Boy did it go like a hot damn.  I could have sold it and gotten a lot of money. Another afternoon on the long weekend, Victoria Day, the Air Force flew the helicopters with flags below them. I find I can't sleep well at night cause they have stopped flying now that we are wrapping up.

We had a few days where the winds were so strong that they blew tents away, which was really funny to hear over the radio, but not so funny to have to collect and put back up. One nice suprise was the number of navy personnel that were on this exercise. Mostly support trades like chaplains, supply and medical but great to see none the less.

Ready Aye Ready