In July of 2017, the soldiers of 4th Platoon, Alpha Company, 127th Airborne Engineering Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division, arrived in Afghanistan in support of continued U.S. operations in the region.
A few months after their arrival, the soldiers were on a route-clearing mission when they came under attack.
Sgt. Joshua Sears was in the lead vehicle of the convoy when he noticed they were passing a local vehicle that appeared to be loaded with woven plastic bags, the type that typically hold roughly 50 pounds of fruit, fertilizer or explosives.
Before Sgt. Sears had time to react the local vehicle exploded as it passed next to the convoy.
On the day that Sgt. Sears platoon was attacked, the injured soldiers were being treated at a field hospital within only 32 minutes of the incident.
The quick response of the soldiers saved lives because they knew their jobs and their training kicked in. As soon as Sears exited his lead vehicle he could see other soldiers were helping the wounded out of their vehicles with multiple small fires around them.
While many soldiers worked to free those trapped in their vehicles the leaders of the platoon immediately set up a security perimeter in case of another attack.
Then they worked on putting out the fires from the massive explosion while they continued to free trapped soldiers. Finally, the platoon swept a landing zone for explosives so a helicopter could land to evacuate the injured.
Obviously, these soldiers received excellent training and everyone did their job to secure the area and evacuate the injured as quickly as possible.
Now, I realize most of us aren’t traveling in military convoys in war zones, but the reality is, we can learn and apply many of these techniques to our lives.
For example, if you plan to bug out during a disaster with multiple family members you might be in multiple vehicles and you need to think about how you would travel together until you reach a safe area.
With that in mind, here is some basic vehicle convoy information that you can apply to a survival situation.
Planning the route. If you are evacuating before a storm hits, you should have a planned safe location to go to well in advance. Everyone in your group should know how to get to this location.
If you are leaving with a convoy of other vehicles you need to have a briefing before you leave. Provide all members of the group with the same paper maps (ones you could easily print from the web.)
These maps should include route A, route B, and route C since you never know the road conditions on a certain planned path. Never depend on your smart phone or GPS as these can obviously fail during a disaster situation.
Communications. Exchanging cell phone numbers with everyone in the convoy is a given, but you need to be prepared for cell phone towers to be knocked out.
For this reason, I recommend everyone in the group having a two-way radio such as the Baofeng UV-5R. Make sure all members have the same frequency (as well as a backup frequency) so you can stay in contact at all times.
Lastly, share with the convoy a few basic signals such as three honks means stop as soon as it’s safe to do so. Or if the person behind you is flashing their headlights then it means you need to move quicker.
Again, come up with some basic ways to alert others if all communication means go down.
Plan for failures. When I say failures, I mean vehicle issues such as a flat tire or car trouble. Everyone in the group should have the necessary tools to change a flat tire on their vehicle.
If that does happen the entire convoy should pull over with the disabled vehicle. If you have a large group you should be able to change a tire in 5 minutes and be back on the road.
Those not helping change the tire can do safety and security for the convoy by making sure the group is protected from any threats or other vehicles.
The bottom line is, traveling as a convoy during a survival situation is often overlooked, but when your life is on the line and you are bugging out, saying to someone “just follow me” is not a good idea.
