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The New Jersey National Guard troops from the Teaneck Armory are now in Iraq. In the months as they prepared to leave, The Record was there every step of the way — with video, photos, and stories.

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New Jersey at War: Combat prep

Monday, August 4, 2008
Last updated: Monday August 4, 2008, EDT 8:31 PM

BY MIKE KELLY

See the slide show: Combat Life Saving

Camp McGregor, N.M. – Marlene Martinez, new mom and relatively new soldier, volunteered to die one day last week in the red sand of this desolate military training base.

Martinez, 22, a New Jersey National Guard specialist from Ridgefield who gave birth to a boy in January, wasn’t really in danger of losing anything more than her dignity. Swathed with the sort of bloody-glop, torn-flesh make-up better suited to a Stephen King horror flick, she pretended to be a battle casualty so soldiers from Foxtrot company, based at the Teaneck armory, could practice a simulated rescue amid smoke grenades and recorded machine gun blasts.

“I have an amputated arm and a lacerated leg,” Martinez quipped through a wide smile.

This was no joke, though. Nor was it a movie set. Welcome to the short course in combat preparation for New Jersey’s citizen soldiers.

Amid the sand, scrub, tarantulas and cactus of one of America’s most sun-seared deserts, some 2,800 members of New Jersey’s 50 Infantry Brigade Combat Team are trying to hone their bodies, minds and emotions before heading to Iraq next month, the largest deployment of Garden State National Guard troops since World War II.

Their journey here is part of an intense, two-month Army training regimen, aimed at turning otherwise ordinary New Jerseyans into lock-and-loaded soldiers.

And so far, it seems to be working. Base officials say the units are all on-course to complete their training by Labor Day.

In Martinez’s case, it means balancing her combat training with her suddenly long-distance motherhood – and the realization that her infant son will spend his first year with her mother. “I just heard he’s crawling,” Martinez said.

At Camp McGregor, the rules are simple and tough. There is no booze, no leaving the base, no days off.

Soldiers must carry their unloaded rifles or pistols when they leave their barracks — even as they balance plates heaped high with eggs and pancakes in the mess hall. What’s more, they must always stay on guard for simulated attacks and wear high-tech water-bearing backpacks to fight off dehydration as they march with 30-pound body armor wrapping their chests.

As Specialist Greg Appleyard, 22, of North Arlington described his personal transformation: “We’re weekend warriors. We deploy once a month. Now it’s full time.”

With Camp McGregor, the Pentagon is trying to recreate the omnipresent tension of Iraq, even down to the daily Muslim prayer calls over speakers attached to telephone poles and traffic signs that include instructions in English and Arabic. Each day, soldiers test themselves in a variety of skills, from shooting, map reading and driving Humvees, to hand-to-hand fighting, guarding prisoners, crawling under barbed wire and searching houses in a mock Iraqi village with insurgents dressed in Middle Eastern clothes.

Most soldiers seem to agree on the most difficult challenge here: How to survive the intense sun and 95-degree temperatures of New Mexico, which are mild compared to Iraq.

“You can train and train,” said Sergeant Brenda Alston, 46, of Paterson, a grandmother of three and mother of five. “But when you’re overheated, it hits you hard.”

Since leaving New Jersey in late June, Alston has dropped 11 pounds. Her weight loss is hardly unusual, though. Their commanders say that the New Jersey soldiers have lost an average of 10 pounds each – the equivalent of 14 tons across the brigade’s 2,800 soldiers.

Foxtrot Company, based in the Teaneck Armory, has one of the brigade’s weight-loss leaders, Private First Class Jose Mercedes, 22, of Jersey City, the unit’s flag bearer.

When Mercedes left New Jersey in late June, he topped the scales at 273 pounds. He’s now 250 and getting slimmer, he says.

“I’m pushing for 230 when I leave for Iraq,” he said. “When I come home from Iraq I want to be a solid 200.”

To be sure, the soldiers’ concerns extend beyond weight loss and dehydration.

Foxtrot’s commander, Captain James Egan of Glen Rock, said the passing of the first month at Camp McGregor was especially traumatic, with soldiers confronting a wide range of problems back home — from relationship break-ups to spouses having to deal alone with unruly children.

“They’ve come a long way in a month,” Egan said of his 130 soldiers. “But it seems like the one-month is a landmark, a struggle point for a lot of people back home. It’s just the realization that it’s been one month and we have 11 more of these to go. It’s tough.”

One Foxtrot soldier is recovering at the Fort Bliss Army hospital in nearby El Paso, Texas after emergency surgery to repair a heart valve. Another went back to New Jersey to attend a relative’s funeral.

Still another, Specialist Randal St. Louis, got a life-changing cell phone call last week. His wife, whom he married a month before leaving the Teaneck Armory, is now pregnant. With the baby due in March, St. Louis is hoping the Army will let him fly home from Iraq under a special plan that allows soldiers to come home for the birth of a first child.

“Thank God I have my cell phone,” St. Louis said.

Still other soldiers share an understandable worry: Can they handle the pressure in Iraq?

“Some of the kids can’t wait to go. Others are apprehensive,” said Foxtrot’s First Sergeant, 43-year-old Scott Card of New Milford.

At 26 years old, Foxtrot’s second-in-command, Lieutenant Sarah Bernal of Teaneck, is heading to Iraq for the second time. On her first deployment, she drove a truck — a five-ton target for insurgents’ bullets and bombs that left her with a simple philosophy about combat: “You can’t face everything with fear,” Bernal said. “You have to have hope and trust.”

But for all the training and advice from Iraq veterans like Bernal, there are always unexpected problems and accidents.

As she lay on a stretcher in her role as an injured soldier for a combat life-saving drill, Marlene Martinez rubbed her chin and frowned. A training sergeant asked if she was okay.

“I’m alright,” Martinez said. “But when they carried me on the stretcher, somebody hit me with the butt of a rifle.”

Martinez looked up at her comrades.

“It could be worse,” she said.

E-mail: kellym@northjersey.com

Page 1 2 >>

See the slide show: Combat Life Saving

Camp McGregor, N.M. – Marlene Martinez, new mom and relatively new soldier, volunteered to die one day last week in the red sand of this desolate military training base.

Martinez, 22, a New Jersey National Guard specialist from Ridgefield who gave birth to a boy in January, wasn’t really in danger of losing anything more than her dignity. Swathed with the sort of bloody-glop, torn-flesh make-up better suited to a Stephen King horror flick, she pretended to be a battle casualty so soldiers from Foxtrot company, based at the Teaneck armory, could practice a simulated rescue amid smoke grenades and recorded machine gun blasts.

“I have an amputated arm and a lacerated leg,” Martinez quipped through a wide smile.

This was no joke, though. Nor was it a movie set. Welcome to the short course in combat preparation for New Jersey’s citizen soldiers.

Amid the sand, scrub, tarantulas and cactus of one of America’s most sun-seared deserts, some 2,800 members of New Jersey’s 50 Infantry Brigade Combat Team are trying to hone their bodies, minds and emotions before heading to Iraq next month, the largest deployment of Garden State National Guard troops since World War II.

Their journey here is part of an intense, two-month Army training regimen, aimed at turning otherwise ordinary New Jerseyans into lock-and-loaded soldiers.

And so far, it seems to be working. Base officials say the units are all on-course to complete their training by Labor Day.

In Martinez’s case, it means balancing her combat training with her suddenly long-distance motherhood – and the realization that her infant son will spend his first year with her mother. “I just heard he’s crawling,” Martinez said.

At Camp McGregor, the rules are simple and tough. There is no booze, no leaving the base, no days off.

Soldiers must carry their unloaded rifles or pistols when they leave their barracks — even as they balance plates heaped high with eggs and pancakes in the mess hall. What’s more, they must always stay on guard for simulated attacks and wear high-tech water-bearing backpacks to fight off dehydration as they march with 30-pound body armor wrapping their chests.

As Specialist Greg Appleyard, 22, of North Arlington described his personal transformation: “We’re weekend warriors. We deploy once a month. Now it’s full time.”

With Camp McGregor, the Pentagon is trying to recreate the omnipresent tension of Iraq, even down to the daily Muslim prayer calls over speakers attached to telephone poles and traffic signs that include instructions in English and Arabic. Each day, soldiers test themselves in a variety of skills, from shooting, map reading and driving Humvees, to hand-to-hand fighting, guarding prisoners, crawling under barbed wire and searching houses in a mock Iraqi village with insurgents dressed in Middle Eastern clothes.

Most soldiers seem to agree on the most difficult challenge here: How to survive the intense sun and 95-degree temperatures of New Mexico, which are mild compared to Iraq.

“You can train and train,” said Sergeant Brenda Alston, 46, of Paterson, a grandmother of three and mother of five. “But when you’re overheated, it hits you hard.”

Since leaving New Jersey in late June, Alston has dropped 11 pounds. Her weight loss is hardly unusual, though. Their commanders say that the New Jersey soldiers have lost an average of 10 pounds each – the equivalent of 14 tons across the brigade’s 2,800 soldiers.

Foxtrot Company, based in the Teaneck Armory, has one of the brigade’s weight-loss leaders, Private First Class Jose Mercedes, 22, of Jersey City, the unit’s flag bearer.

When Mercedes left New Jersey in late June, he topped the scales at 273 pounds. He’s now 250 and getting slimmer, he says.

“I’m pushing for 230 when I leave for Iraq,” he said. “When I come home from Iraq I want to be a solid 200.”

To be sure, the soldiers’ concerns extend beyond weight loss and dehydration.

Page 1 2 >>