U.S. troops hone combat skills in Nevada desert

Several thoughts occur to you more or less at once when you're suspended upside down by your shoulder straps in the back of an armored vehicle.

You should have paid closer attention to the 30 seconds of instruction that Air Force dude barked at you before you climbed in.

If you unbuckle your shoulder straps in an effort to escape, you will fall directly on your head.

This would all be pretty terrifying if you were in, say, Afghanistan, being fired upon by insurgents.

Also, don't throw up.

The scenario is repeated many times a day at the Nevada Test and Training Range, in the desert some 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas, where ground troops from all branches of the U.S. military rehearse for missions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

They spend weeks here honing their skills for confronting enemy combatants and dealing with all types of situations they might encounter on deployment. The overturned armored vehicle is one of them.

"One of the major dangers is deaths by accidents," explains Tech. Sgt. Antonio Marrero, who supervises instructors at the range. "Rollover training has reduced those deaths."

If you are lucky enough to be a civilian invited to the range, instructors from the 99th Ground Combat Training Squadron welcome you graciously. They help you into your Kevlar vest and helmet when you can't figure out how the straps work. They try real hard not to laugh at you when you stumble while trying to climb into a Humvee.

And when it takes you roughly 60 shots to kill a virtual-reality insurgent, Staff Sgt. O.K. Hubble insists "you weren't really that bad."

This is the coolest video game ever, by the way. Inside a big warehouse, there's a 360-degree screen onto which is projected, in the distance, a nameless Middle Eastern city. It's a bright, clear day on the outskirts of the city, where U.S. Air Force security forces are patrolling in a full-size, stationary Humvee. When the steering wheel turns, the screen shifts.

"It reacts exactly as it would in the real world," Hubble says. "We upload real-life scenarios they would encounter."

Suddenly, a few hundred yards ahead, an explosion rips into the sky on the screen. Someone has detonated a bomb planted in an abandoned vehicle at the side of the road.

The Humvee begins taking fire from a half dozen insurgents, hidden in virtual bushes and behind cars. Everybody spills out of the vehicle onto the floor of the warehouse, shooting their assault rifles until the insurgents stop firing.

This would all be terrifying if it were real.

Down the road at the firing range, Staff Sgt. Josh Svendsen is waiting for you with his collection of giant guns.

He stands 6 feet tall and wears a red ball cap with the words "COMBAT ARMS" inscribed on it. He doesn't talk much, just hands you some earplugs, leads you to a .50-caliber machine gun and gestures toward a collection of shot-up trucks and tanks in the distance.

A few seconds later he realizes you lack the upper-arm strength to even cock the gun, so he wordlessly does it for you.

The rat-tat-tat-tat of the shots is kind of addictive. This is a lot of fun when nobody's firing back at you.

The range also is home to "Gotham City," formally known as the Urban Operations Complex, a fake city complete with buildings, roads and an airstrip. It was built so troops could practice searching buildings and mingling with "locals" portrayed by range instructors.

"They're not being trained to blow up everything they see," says 2nd Lt. Ken Lustig, a spokesman for Nellis Air Force Base. "They're trained to interact with civilians. They learn the rules of engagement."

Back in the armored vehicle, upside down, you think about how you get to go home while the scores of troops training at the range today soon will be deployed to places where they will have to use the skills they've learned here for real.

It kind of puts things in perspective.

You unbuckle your shoulder straps and fall directly on your head.

Contact reporter Lynnette Curtis at lcurtis@review journal.com or 702-383-0285.