FORT IRWIN, Calif • The decision came in a moment of desperation.Faced with two blown power inverters and a broken coffee machine, one of Staff Sgt. Troy Crabb’s soldiers grabbed a blow torch and a coffee pot and set out for the day’s most important mission.Twice-brewed coffee.Getting through the two weeks downrange at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin — a Rhode Island-sized expanse eerily similar to the barren landscape of Afghanistan — requires a mix of perseverance and brevity.A fog of dust reminiscent of the Los Angeles skyline constantly hangs over the tanks and tactical operation centers dotting the landscape. In the evening, it settles on the single hot meal served daily — still a welcome respite from the Meals, Ready to Eat that offer the only other source of nutrition.“I’m still having a hard time believing it’s California,” said Spc. Lay-Elquinn Ferguson, who grew up in this state, eight hours north.Forget Army-supplied showers.For two weeks, deodorant and their commanders’ orders are all that keeps these soldiers in the same tank.Portable toilets have been an unexpected addition in the training’s first week. Once the large-scale war games swing into gear, those are likely to go, too, in favor or more primitive facilities — picture suitably modified plastic bags.The means for surviving this environment vary. A veteran of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, Crabb made sure his soldiers came prepared.His mission to brew coffee that day ended with a sludge of water and coffee grinds mixed in that pot, heated and poured through a filter holding more grinds.“It was ridiculous,” Crabb said. “We brewed one cup at a time.”It served as a potent alternative to “battle coffee,” a pulse-quickening concoction of creamer, sugar and instant coffee that’s mixed together and downed by a single shot of water.Caffeine is essential.His first five days “in the box” — a term describing the training range where soldiers fire lasers at each other and live ammunition at targets — Crabb slept two to three hours a night.His section of artillery coordinators carried out daylight and nighttime exercises each day, while also rehearsing and planning each move in sessions that stretched into the early hours of the morning.“It sucks, it definitely sucks,” said Crabb, of his sleep cycle. “But it’s good for the training.”“Wars aren’t fought on eight hours of sleep,” added Ferguson, quoting a commander’s maxim.The crown jewel of the improvements to the camp alongside their Bradley Armored Fighting Vehicle hung on a pole jutting out of the vehicle’s driver’s seat.Suspended about 8 feet above the ground, a bag of water with a hose dangling from the bottom offered Crabb and his soldiers a chance at relief from the one constant in their lives down here: dust.Most soldiers clean themselves with baby wipes.Not Crabb.“I think I’ve learned to make do,” Crabb said.

Spc. Lay-Elquinn Ferguson, of the1st Brigade Combat team’s 1st Battalion, 22nd Infantry Regiment, stands near an improvised shower rigged up to keep Fort Carson soldiers clean during a training exercise this month at Fort Irwin, calif. Photo by Jakob Rodgers / The Gazette