Cactuses, Burritos, and Leopards:  C Sqn Maintenance in Fort Bliss on Ex REFLEXE AGUERRI

By Sgt Scott Clipsham
13 February 2009

 

After enjoying a well deserved rest over Christmas, half of the troop deployed to Fort Bliss Texas to support the Leopard tanks. For those of us who have already been in Afghanistan we found Ft Bliss to be strangely familiar. The view of the surrounding mountains looked exactly like Kandahar province. Even the weather was similar to Afghanistan.

 

After quickly settling into our luxury accommodations we set to work preparing the tanks for the upcoming ranges.

Thankfully the vehicles arrived in Texas in excellent shape, which made our stay in Texas much easier. This also allowed us to catch up on personal training that we had missed because of our stay in Germany. A few blisters later we had all finished our annual 13 km march, thankful the whole time that we wouldn’t have to do it back in wintery Edmonton.

 

By the end of the second week we were all enjoying the warmish weather (daily highs of 18-22ºC), and many were partaking in the daily ritual of eating Tex Mex from a lunch truck making its rounds. And everyone was looking forward to heading home again.

 

Now that we are back in Edmonton we will be very busy during the last month before deployment. There will be a lot more training to make up, vehicles to be cleaned and inspected, and leave to take. Soon we will be on the road again, this time to Afghanistan. And as our families will appreciate the sooner we go the sooner we will come back.