Harsh El Paso landscape ideal for Middle East deployment training

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EL PASO – The Fort Bliss Army Installation in this far west Texas city is considered one of the best possible locations for combat training in the United States because its harsh desert climate and terrain are near perfect simulations of deployment locations in some Middle East countries like Afghanistan and Iraq. Frequent near-blinding dust storms and blazing heat are among the weather conditions prevalent in the area surrounding Fort Bliss as well as in Afghanistan and Iraq where the U.S. currently has 11,000 combat troops. Soldiers of the 2nd Battalion 3rd Brigade Field Artillery (2-3FA) recently participated in air assault training in a desert clearing off Route Grey in Fort Bliss in northeast El Paso. Fort Bliss is the largest installation in the United States Army Forces Command (FORSCOM) with an area of about 1,700 square miles. According to facts from Military Installations, there are 27,132 active duty soldiers at Fort Bliss.

The IAV Stryker, the currnt vehicle used for mechanized operations. (Ken Hudnall/Borderzine.com)

Back in the saddle again – Old soldiers never die, they come back as journalists

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EL PASO – It was Marlon Brando in Apocalypse Now who said “I love the smell of napalm in the morning.” For me it is the sound of powerful diesel engines idling, hinting just a promise of the power at your command and diesel fumes filing the air that takes me back to an earlier time when it was my company waiting to move out to the field. I had been a career Infantry Officer until my injury. I took the uniform off long ago, but the feel and the thrill of moving a company of men and vehicles to engage an enemy is a feeling that is never forgotten. So when this assignment came along, I did not have to think long before agreeing to work as an embedded reporter in a military exercise at Fort Bliss, Texas.