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HOHENFELS, Germany - A training scenario in which a "car bomb" blew up a bus load of Iraqi civilians was nothing new to some of the 18th Engineer Brigade soldiers involved in cleaning up the mess.
Many of the soldiers participating in the training at Hohenfels Joint Multinational Readiness Center are combat veterans who have responded to real mass casualty events in Iraq.
"I can't count how many times I've seen it," said 370th Engineer Company soldier Spc. Merit Draven, 28, of Sonora, Calif.
During this predeployment training, Draven helped treat simulated wounds that ranged from mutilating blast injuries to amputations and abdominal wounds. But, he added, he's seen worse.
"I have seen 40 or 50 people (injured) at a time from suicide bombers and IEDs (improvised explosive devices)," he said.
Sgt. Maj. Jeffrey Mann, of the 54th Engineer Battalion, said his unit took 14 casualties in a rocket attack on Camp Ramadi in March 2006.
"I was one of them. I had shrapnel wounds," said the 40-year-old Camarillo, Calif., native, adding that soldiers who helped him and other victims did an outstanding job and everyone who got hurt in the blast survived.
Maj. Damon Knarr, 32, of Merritt Island, Fla., a JMRC observer controller training the engineers, said the car-bomb scenario was a surprise thrown into a route-clearance training mission.
"The VBIED (vehicle borne improvised explosive device) went off in front of their convoy while they were doing route clearance. There were four civilians killed and 10 wounded," he said.
Engineers had to secure the area, stop traffic, tend to the casualties and work with local national organizations to evacuate them to medical facilities, he said.
"It replicates things that they may or may not see downrange. But it is things that have happened, so they train it here. It is training the leaders to think on their feet and make the right decisions depending on the situation," he said.
Although the "car bomb" was supposed to be a surprise, Mann said he always expects that sort of thing.
"I expect it on the battlefield so why not expect it here?" he asked.
When they get to Iraq, the 54th soldiers will provide assured mobility for maneuver units: a mission that encompasses route clearance, crater repair, making sure insurgents don't put bombs in culverts and clearing trash from streets that might hide IEDs, he said. The battalion also will build, upgrade and repair combat outposts, he said.
The 54th's commander, Lt. Col. Christopher Lestochi, 41, of Allentown, Pa., said the JMRC exercise, which ends over the weekend, caps a month of predeployment training at Grafenwöhr and Hohenfels.
The engineers will deploy to Baghdad around May, he said.

GRAFENWÖHR, Germany - Soldiers from the 18th Engineer Brigade are tackling mock roadside bombs and insurgent role-players in preparation for deployment to Iraq in May.
Capt. Stephen Barker, public affairs officer with the 18th Engineer Brigade, said the brigade - which has already deployed to Iraq one of its units, the 535th Engineer Company, along with a nine-man construction management team - is preparing to deploy its Headquarters, the 54th Engineer Battalion and the 370th Engineer (Sapper) Company there in May.
On Friday the engineers' vehicles formed long convoys that crawled through Grafenwöhr Training Area watching out for attacks by "insurgents."
First Sgt. Tom Biggerstaff, 36, of Battle Lake, Minn., said his unit with the 370th has three route clearance platoons.
The platoons react to attacks by role-players using machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades.
It was nothing new to the unit's noncommissioned officers. According to Biggerstaff, they have all served downrange, most on the unit's last mission to Ramadi, from 2005 to 2006.
Many of the NCOs have experienced bomb blasts multiple times and have the Purple Hearts to prove it, he said.
"When we were in Ramadi in 2005 it was common to find five IEDs (improvised explosive devices) on a patrol and once we found 12," he said.
These days, with the reduced violence in Iraq, engineer units might take months to find a handful of roadside bombs.
Biggerstaff said the 54th will have horizontal and vertical construction companies attached to it in Iraq. The companies will help improve combat outposts in Baghdad, he said.
"There is also a rapid crater repair section that fills in potholes to stop the enemy using them to plant IEDs," he said.
One of the 18th Engineer Brigade soldiers, Staff Sgt. Bernard Miles, 23, of Tulsa, Okla., said he was training to lead a security gun truck and demolish any bombs the unit might find by the roadside.
Another engineer, Pfc. Terrance Barton, 21, of Houston, drives the Buffalo, a large armored vehicle with a robotic arm that soldiers use to check out suspected bombs.
During Friday's training the engineers didn't have a real Buffalo so they used a large truck that they call a "Roughalo." The engineers tied a pickax to the truck and used that to "interrogate" suspected bombs along the route.
The engineers also had a remote-controlled robot, equipped with a camera and a smaller arm, to place explosive charges on suspected bombs to blow them up.
Capt. Penny Bloedel, 30, of Winfield, Kan., who commands the 18th's Forward Support Company, said she has plenty of green young soldiers in her unit, although her NCOs are experienced.
On Friday the company practiced a combat logistics patrol, the sort of mission the unit's drivers will do to deliver supplies to engineers in the field.
"We have to provide our own security for logistics runs. In training there are a lot of things like reacting to IEDs and reacting to contact as well as vehicle recovery," she said.
The 18th will conduct a Mission Rehearsal Exercise for its Iraq mission at Hohenfels late this month, according to Joint Multinational Readiness Center spokeswoman Capt. Junel Jeffrey.