As Seen in the Wild Sheep Foundation Fall 2022 

For the past 20 years the National Training center on Fort Irwin California has been the last training phase of all Army units before their deployment to some far-flung place to try and help the locals of the region in some way.  Be it bridge building, medical services, or simply clearing the area of extremist soldiers all units pass through Fort Irwin and the National Training Center.

There are several reactions soldiers have to time spent in the deserts of Southern California.The first is of extreme concentration.  Young men and women read Sun Tso’s “the Art of War” or work through their ranger handbooks with a religious fervor, highlighting phrases and acronyms to remember, or operational strategies for clearing urban areas or mountain regions.  Their focus is on their men and the mission. This is the attitude of most first-time participants in the NTC and for most of our highest caliber units regardless of how many cycles they’ve been through. The Second reaction is of overcompensating calm.  Soldiers pack playing cards and even try to smuggle in their drink of choice disguised inListerine bottles.  These are usually the ones who have been through a cycle before and don’t bother themselves with things out their control.  Another reaction is fear.  Not fear of the National Training Center but if what comes after.  You see soldiers stepping off the chinook into the bleak monotone desert that’s been expertly crafted to resemble the middle east.  OPFOR personnel walk around in traditional Arab garb.  The sound of little bird and Apache gunships running range drills echo in the distance while mange ridden coyotes’ snack on the piles of debris left by units that came before you.  The scene is surreal for most and the whites of their eyes seem to get bigger as they desperately try to take in every word of wisdom their NCO’s have to offer.

What no one going through a rotation at the National Training center is thinking about, is the fate of the Sonoran Pronghorn, Burrowing Tortoise, or Desert Bighorn Sheep native to the barren desert that has become the soldier’s temporary home.  Sure, they may think of scorpions, desert spiders, or even invasive wild burro’s but only as they affect that soldier’s level of safety and comfort. 

When our California Chapter Coordinator Devin O’Dea called me to ask if I could come out to work on a guzzler project on Fort Irwin it seemed so strange.  Although I have been out of the Military for almost 6 years and have been conservation focused in my civilian career the idea that Fort Irwin would have any purpose other than the training of soldiers struck me as one of the weirdest concepts I had ever heard.  I of course agreed and booked my flight plans, although I still hadn’t completely wrapped my brain around the project.

Weeks later pulling up to the gates of the fort we paused for a safety brief from range control near the painted rocks where every unit that passed through the NTC had painted their unit insignia as tall as a man on one of the rocks set in a large pile in the desert.  While the rest of our small group was taking pictures with the rocks, marveling at their colorful contrast to the surrounding beige tones, and even using one of them to hide themselves while they peed.  All I could think about was the fact that we had been at war so long that units had to start shipping in their own rocks to paint rather than use the rocks available on site.  We have sent so many units to war in the last 20 years that we ran out of rocks in the desert.  The concept was so shocking and unsettling it was hard to understand how the other members of the working party couldn’t see what I saw.  Later I thought about the young privates sent out into the desert to paint the unit’s symbol on a rock in the blistering heat after a month of living outside in the elements and I can’t help to think what a pointless way to spend their time knowing their next stop after this was a combat zone.  Then I thought about how many of those young privates were also the ones who are called upon to most of the shooting, shoveling, and dying in war and I started to look at those rocks like headstones.

Our group moved into the fort and onto the training area to start the 3-day project of installing this sheep drinking fountain.  On the 45-min ride to the work area we passed several convoys of military vehicles conducting training.  Surrounded by what I once would have called hippies on a biological mission I couldn’t help but identify with the drivers of these multi ton vehicles and how the idea of animals living in this desert was so far from their minds. They were certainly cursing our small convoy of civilian vehicles to their crews on the internal mic system,

 “What the F*ck are these a**holes doing way out here, it’s already blowing sand around at 20 mph and I can only see out of this little 10-inch window but sure drive on by you long haired F*cks”.

The soldiers in those vehicles didn’t get why we were here and to be honest neither did I.  In my mind Fort Irwin, all forts really existed as a place for me and others like me to fine tune my men before heading into a war.  The sand, the heat, the mountains, the wildlife were all carefully crafted department of defense props designed for the explicit purpose of making us better soldiers.

We worked in those mountains for three days clearing 50 lb boulders by hand and raking the stones from the desert floor until we were left with a fine sand.  We dug pits as deep and wide as a man and 5 times as long.  We ran plumbing and fencing to protect our piece of the desert, smaller than a high school football field.  The whole time I was silently cursing the desert.  I hated those mangey begging coyotes around camp, and shaking scorpions out of my boots in the morning.  I hated how it was 85 degrees in the day, and 20 degrees at night.  I hated the sun burn, the sweat and I still didn’t get what we were doing here. 

We drove out on the third day and got back to San Diego around midnight.  I showered and thought blankly about what I was going to write about this work project.  I started looking through the pictures we had taken and realized how happy all the non-military volunteers had been.  I began to realize that these biologists, hunters, and wildlife enthusiasts were un phased by the last 20 years of war.  Fort Irwin to them was this wonderful place in the desert with multiple endangered species of flora and fauna.  The purpose of this desert to them had nothing to do with war or training soldiers, to them the desert was a magical place home to a very specific type of charismatic megafauna called the desert bighorn sheep. 

When I looked at the photos of our biologists and the persistent smiles on their faces; I could see that my view of this place was very specifically crafted by my experience in the military and the last 20 years of war.  Then I started thinking about the mission and the sheep.  We were there to put water in the desert, which to folks like me can seem asinine and stupid.

“Why don’t the sheep just live where there is more water”, I asked myself.

Never mind that the fort had taken in more water for the increased number of soldiers over the last 20 years and never mind the miles of desert terrain blocking these sheep from accessing other water.  Obviously, the operational tempo and geopolitical atmosphere dictated that that water was needed for our men and women in uniform.  Damn the sheep.

It wasn’t until a few weeks later when I saw the first trail camera photos of our new watering hole that I started to see the situation differently.  These are not simply Desert Bighorn sheep.  They are a part of this amazing ecosystem and chain of ecosystems that are an integral part of what makes the United States of America the greatest country on earth.  They aren’t just bighorn sheep; they are American bighorn sheep; and like the rest of the country they sacrificed part of themselves for the war effort.  Water that could have gone to these sheep instead was rerouted to our soldiers to keep them fit for the coming fight.  How many sheep starved to death or died of thirst so our soldiers could be the best trained soldiers in the world?  How many ram skulls litter those mountains so our young men and women could have the training that brought them home safe?

The story of fort Irwin and the wars in the middle east isn't the story of nervous soldiers training for the fight of their lives, nor is it the story of a decimated bighorn sheep populations struggle to survive with less and less water for 20 years.  The story of Fort Irwin is about how one small part of the Southern California desert sacrificed part of itself for the greater good of the nation.  It’s also a story of repaying that sacrifice, to the young men and women who trained there, to the animals, and to the land itself.

The Armed Forces Initiative exists not just taking veterans and active military folks hunting and fishing to help with Post Traumatic Stress, Traumatic Brain Injury, the veteran suicide epidemic, or with the military to civilian transition process.  We are engaging in the conservation conversation.  The same men and women who took water from the sheep for 20 years to support them through a war' are out there giving the water back.  As the sheep recover from their sacrifices so will we.

I look at the pile of painted rocks at the gate to the Fort a little differently now.  They are not a morbid reminder of the last 20 years but a testament to the capacity for sacrifice of the United States Of America.  To contradict the song “This Land Is Your Land”

This land is your land, this land is my land

From California to the New York Island

From the Redwood Forest, to the Gulf stream waters,

This land was made for you and me.

This Land was not made for you and me, this land is You and Me.  The Rocks, the Cactus, the People, the Animals, we are all one country interlinked with each other each sacrifice in turn to keep us the greatest county on earth.  

Pictures by Devin O'Dea, the Society for the Conservation of Bighorn Sheep, and Trevor Hubbs