Photo By Staff Sgt. Jennifer Spradlin | Sgt. Steven Sawyer, with the 110th Chemical Battalion, helps his team set up a Single...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - Cold, constant rain could not put out the competitive fire of the Iron Dragon Soldiers during a multi-event team leadership and warrior task challenge here Oct. 30.
Participants were selected from within the 110th Chemical Battalion and set loose on North Lewis to find and locate a series of skill stations along a seven-mile route, melding both team and individual tasks along the way.
Stations covered a wide array of tasks to include first aid, weapon familiarization, common battlefield movement techniques and a general knowledge test. The teams were assembled across a broad range of ranks, duty positions and military occupational specialties and, for many, it was the first time they worked closely together to accomplish a mission.
“Soldiers with different [career fields] have their own strengths and skill sets, and we wanted to ensure that these skill sets are divided evenly between the teams. It’s also important that Soldiers get a chance to work together with different personnel than they usually do when conducting day-to-day operations to learn from various experiences - that will make the unit stronger as a whole,” said Capt. Christa Martin, event organizer and military intelligence officer with the 110th Chemical Battalion.
“These types of events push Soldiers to try their best and improves their self-confidence. They also give a chance for Soldiers to test their leadership skills and lead from the front,” she added.
For Sgt. Stevie Ward, a Chemical, Biological, Radiological, and Nuclear specialist, in his 11th year of service, the event reminded him that a noncommissioned officer can always learn and work to improve their individual competency.
“We were forced to utilize skills we don’t use on a day-to-day basis, perishable skills like land navigation. It was challenging,” he said. “Certain basic Soldier skills you might lose touch with. For example, my assigned weapon is a M4 [rifle]. I have not used the M249 [light machine gun] in many years, which meant that disassembling it and doing a functions check was a weak point that I could improve on.”
Overall, he was proud of how his team responded to the event, and he felt it was something that should be implemented into other units’ training plans.
“You learn a lot about what you don’t know, what you should know, what you think that you know and other areas that you need to refresh on. The obstacles that we had to overcome – weather, fatigue – just made us push harder,” Ward said.
More than eight hours after starting the event, the teams funneled into the battalion area to receive medals and congratulate one another on meeting the challenge. For the participants, it was further proof that they earned the right to have the moniker of Iron Dragons.
| Date Taken: | 10.30.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 11.06.2014 13:19 |
| Story ID: | 147196 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 34 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Iron Dragon Soldiers compete in skills, leadership challenge, by SSG Jennifer Spradlin, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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