Two Casualties, a Dead DAGR, and 800 Meters of Doubt
You are SGT Rivas, squad leader of an 8-Soldier dismounted patrol. It is 0130; light rain, visibility roughly 40 meters, temperature falling toward 38°F and everyone is wet. Your DAGR is dead and there are no spare batteries; the squad's only lensatic compass was dropped and the needle sticks. Your last confirmed location was a trail junction 800 meters back; since then you have moved on an azimuth of 70 degrees magnetic and your point man has counted 640 paces against a 68-pace-per-100-meter count. PVT Adeyemi has fallen on a rock slope and has an open deformity of the left forearm with a weak radial pulse. A second Soldier is shivering uncontrollably and answering questions slowly. Your linkup is 100 meters east of a road junction at 0400.
1. The DAGR is dead and the compass is unreliable. How do you establish your location and the direction to the linkup, and what do you do about the cold Soldier first?
Read the worked answer
Casualty first, navigation second - the cold Soldier is the clock. Uncontrolled shivering with slowed answers is not mild cold; treat it as hypothermia. Get him out of the wind, into dry layers, insulated from the ground, with a warm (not hot) core, and handle him gently - no rubbing, no alcohol, no forcing him to walk if he is confused. Start warming now, not after you solve the map problem.
Navigation:
- Dead reckoning from the last confirmed point: 640 paces ÷ 68 per 100 m ≈ 940 m traveled on a 70° magnetic azimuth. Plot it - that narrows you to a leg, not a point.
- Terrain association and resection: identify two or three features you can see or hear (the road, a ridgeline, a stream, a clearing edge) and fix your position from them.
- Turn the problem into a handrail. The road junction is the linkup landmark. Move to the linear feature and follow it - a handrail converts a compass problem into a walking problem, and it works in 40-meter visibility.
- Second navigation source: borrow or improvise another compass, and put a second Soldier on the pace count as a cross-check.
- Declination: if you plot from the map, convert grid to magnetic before you step off - the error compounds with distance.
2. With one open fracture and one hypothermic Soldier, do you continue to the linkup, split the squad, or stop? Justify your decision and lay out what you do next.
Read the worked answer
Stop and evacuate. Two casualties out of eight is a mission change, not a delay.
- Establish a hasty perimeter oriented on the most likely threat direction, with a casualty collection point inside it.
- Treat per TCCC priorities: control bleeding, splint the forearm, monitor the weak pulse, prevent shock, and prevent further heat loss for both casualties.
- Submit a 9-line MEDEVAC: location read from the map by resection (state that it is a map-derived grid and give the accuracy); frequency and call sign; number of patients by precedence; special equipment (none or hoist); patients by type (one litter, one ambulatory if he improves); security at the pickup site; marking method (a light/strobe that can be masked - observe light discipline); patient nationality and status; NBC. Then request confirmation of the grid back to you.
- Report to higher with a SALUTE and your change of mission.
- Do not split off a small element to make the linkup. A two-Soldier element without a reliable compass on a dark, rainy night is a third casualty waiting to happen. If the linkup is operationally essential, send a buddy team only with a compass, a written grid, and a turn-around time - and only if the perimeter can hold without them.
3. What risk-management decisions should have been made before step-off, and how do you apply the 5-step process to a patrol like this?
Read the worked answer
The five steps: identify hazards, assess, develop controls, implement, supervise. Applied here:
| Hazard | Control that was missing |
|---|---|
| Single point of failure in navigation | Two compasses, spare DAGR batteries, a map and protractor per team, a backup pace count |
| Weather and cold injury | Wet-weather gear, warming plan, a real cold-weather brief, a leader check on clothing before step-off |
| Rough terrain at night | Slower movement rate, headcount/accountability at each leg, handrails |
| Casualty evacuation | CCP, medevac plan, marking equipment, and a briefed 9-line before departure |
| Time | A reverse-planned timeline with a decision point for turning back |
The principle: risk management is not a form you fill out - it is the deliberate elimination of single points of failure, and supervision of the controls you set. The DAGR battery is a one-dollar item that just cost the mission. That belongs in the next OPORD's sustainment paragraph and in the pre-combat checks, not in a lessons-learned memo after the fact.