Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Britney Hiatt | SPC Johnathan Pfeiffer, a carpentry/masonry specialist with the Detachment 2, 230th...... read more read more
Continuing the five-year Integrated Readiness Training from last year, Montana Army National Guard Soldiers with Detachment 2, 230th Vertical Engineers and the 260th Engineer Support Company spent July 26 through Aug. 25 building a home for veterans on the Crow Agency, Mont.
“We are building a three bedroom, one bath house here on the Crow Agency,” said 2nd Lt. Michael Noyce Merino.
Noyce Merino said that the cement pad was poured by the agency and then it is the engineers job to build everything from the pad all the way up through weatherproofing and roughed in utilities for electrical and plumbing.
“The Army does not teach us to do anymore than sealing it in,” said Sgt. Justin Hamblen, the noncommissioned officer in charge of the 230th's first rotation. “They don’t teach us to do the drywall or the tile work, but we have carpenters, plumbers, and electricians so everything will be ready to go as far as the water, the plumbing, lights and everything being sealed in.”
“What we have are two separate rotations,” Noyce Merino said. “They’re staggered and they overlap for about three days in the middle. We focused most of the carpenters in the first rotation so that they could get the structure up: interior and exterior framing.”
“For the second rotation the electricians and the plumbers of the unit came so that they could start right away with running cable for electricity and pipes for the plumbing,” Noyce Merino said. “There will still be carpenters to continue working the framework during the second rotation as well.”
Working with the 230th to complete the project is the Crow Housing Authority.
“The partnership itself, its a win-win for both parties because we provide the material and the IRT provide the labor,” said Jessica OldElk, the interim director of the Crow Tribal Housing Authority. “They’re getting that training and we’re getting homes for our people.”
“We lack a lot of things, but housing is number one and within the past 10 years, besides these houses that the IRT put up, we haven’t had any new houses around here and we haven’t had any veteran houses,” OldElk said.
Noyce Merino stated, “It is a piece of land that has been designated specifically for veterans. It is part of the crow agency but it is part of their veteran’s complex.”
He said there’s a building here that was built in 2014, but it only has a few housing apartments in it.
“All of the land surrounding it has been set aside for veteran homes and that’s what allows us to keep building homes for veterans; for the foreseeable future there will be construction projects that we can do,” said Noyce Merino.
“I was pretty amazed at how quick they got the walls up the first couple days the first rotation was here.... they hit the ground running basically,” OldElk said. “They came in, they had a job, and they’re on track as long as the housing authority is able to keep the materials coming in a timely manner. These guys are able to knock out what they came here to do and I think that that’s what’s going really well.”
Building the house is not the only benefit for the 230th and 260th participating in the IRT.
“Priority one is getting the building complete, but priority number two is getting the training,” Hamblen said. “Getting Soldiers who don’t have any experience doing the roofing or certain parts of the construction.”
“We don’t get a lot of hands on stuff with our job, especially at our unit,” said Spc. Johanna Lembke, a carpenter and masonry specialist with the 230th.
“We have a lot of other stuff that we have to get done and so training like this is really, really, important to keep our skills up. Its very, very easy just to forget small things and how to do a job properly and so getting back out here and having to do it and put it up and get it all checked really helps just reinforce all of our skills,” Lembke said.
“To the community it was really uplifting to see our military out here in Crow Agency, on the reservation, building homes for veterans of our community,” OldElk said, “I know they appreciated it and I know they were thankful.”
“I think this is a fantastic project and I would definitely like it if we could keep doing this,” said Hamblen. “We’ve talked to all of our Soldiers and everybody feels the same way, that this is a feel good project because you’re actually doing it for somebody. You put so much more pride and work into it because you’re building it for another veteran.”
The IRT project is scheduled to continue next summer with Det. 2’s parent unit, the Hawaii Army National Guard's 230th Engineer Company.
| Date Taken: | 08.10.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 10.14.2018 14:31 |
| Story ID: | 296344 |
| Location: | CROW AGENCY, MT, US |
| Web Views: | 167 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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