Udari Training Range

I spent Wednesday through Friday at the Udari Training Range, a vast expanse of land used for firearms and convoy training. The whole operation, including the scores of convoy route “actors” is run by a contractor. It was a mix of classroom and practical training. While the accommodations certainly were not stellar (the classroom turned into the sleeping tent and resembled one big slumber party, but with agitated adults, no truth or dare and a 0400 wake-up call), the convoy training was well worth the time.

We started off the first day with more small arms instruction and moved to the range the next morning for a series of live fire exercises where we actually had to fire what they call “controlled two round bursts” at static targets. Although the targets were static, we were not and all of the firing was done on the move. Luckily for me, no one mistook me for a target.


From my time at Fort Jackson in South Carolina until now, I have met some really good folks and here I am with three of them, John, Jeremy and Mike, in “full battle rattle” at Udari.

Man that stuff gets heavy and the bulkiness of the armor tends to complicate everything from shooting to just walking. Humvees were not really designed with body armor in mind so getting in and out with all this on is a real challenge. Sorry, no power lumbar support in Humvees, but we did have ones with A/C, which effectively cooled the inside temperature of the vehicle from 105 degrees to 100 . . . .