{"id":1014,"date":"2009-01-10T06:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-01-10T06:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/article\/life-on-buffalo-brings-branson-crew-together"},"modified":"-0001-11-30T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"-0001-11-30T05:00:00","slug":"life-on-buffalo-brings-branson-crew-together","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/?p=1014","title":{"rendered":"Life on Buffalo Brings [Branson] Crew Together"},"content":{"rendered":"
By: Sgt. Catherine Graham, Public Affairs NCO, 890 Eng. Bn.<\/div>\n
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The route clearance patrols of the 890th Engineer Battalion travel the streets of Baghdad throughout the day and night to provide safe travel for the locals and coalition forces. As darkness falls on the streets of Baghdad, the Buffalo crew from 1st platoon, 688th Mobility Augmentation Company, begins their day.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The crew is made up of Sgt. Clinton Caperton, the truck commander, Spc. Michael Shields, driver, and Spc. Joseph Thompson, gunner. [All of whom are from Branson, Missouri.]<\/span><\/div>\n
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As the Soldiers focus on the surrounding environment, a continuous dialogue can be heard through the internal radio.<\/p>\n

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“We pass the time with conversations about marriage, family, movies and pretty much anything I can think of. We have become like brothers so it’s not hard to make conversation,” said Thompson. “We have a lot of memories that we will take with us when we go home. It’s funny that we are all from the same town of Branson, Mo., but we never met each other until this deployment. We have become so close that we plan on staying in touch after we get back.”<\/p>\n

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Each of the crew members has a crew name or nickname that bonds them together. The nickname describes an individual trait of their personality.<\/p>\n

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Caperton has been gifted with the name “Chewy” from a previous deployment because of his ability to make the Chewbacca sound from the movie Star Wars. Shields brand is “Shamrock,” because he is able to mimic an Irish accent. He is so good that if you did not know him, you would never guess he was from the states. Thompson “Broseph,” correctly named because of his brotherly disposition, makes up the rest of the Buffalo crew.<\/p>\n

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Traveling through the dark nights with limited visibility, the crew searches the streets for hours with the assistance of floodlights attached to the vehicle. Common scenery for the platoon is Iraqi army and Iraqi police check points, rubbish and concrete T-walls that line the roads. Some of the walls are painted with designs or writings in the Arabic language. Recently, as the Iraqi elections approach, the T-walls have been covered with political propaganda of candidates adding to the elements that they must sift through. <\/p>\n

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A question often asked by guest riders is, “How can you tell the difference between an IED [improvised explosive device] and what is garbage?”<\/span><\/div>\n
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Spc. Michael Shield, 688th MAC, 1st Platoon’s Buffalo operator response is, “We are able to tell the difference between the trash and IED through familiarization of the route and scenery. We travel these roads every day, and we notice when something is different or new to the landscape.”<\/span><\/div>\n
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“Whenever we interrogate something that looks suspicious there is always a feeling of apprehension and excitement,” said Thompson. “Our missions are a hit or miss situation. If we don’t hit it, we don’t miss it … just joking. We take our job very seriously. If it’s out of place we interrogate,” said Caperton.<\/span><\/div>\n
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The all Branson, MO crew of the “Buffalo,” which is technically a “mine protective clearance vehicle,” is made up of Sgt. Clinton Caperton, the truck commander, Spc. Michael Shields, driver, and Spc. Joseph Thompson, gunner.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-branson-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1014\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bransoncourier.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}