FORT MCCOY, Wis. -- An idea, two years in the making, became a reality during Combat Support Training Exercise 2010.
Col. Michael Goetz, commander of the 644 Regional Support Group of Fort Snelling, Minn., was presented with a tent stake pounder and extractor prototype on Aug. 6.
The device actually doesn’t have an official name. The device though, does pound in and extract tent stakes.
“A couple of years ago at annual training at Fort Hunter Liggett, Calif., we had a couple hundred tents arrayed on the FOB (Forward Operation Base),” said Goetz. “The Soldiers pounded all the stakes into the hard dessert ground.”
“When it came time to take the tents down they couldn’t pull the stakes so they hit them sideways with a hammer and a lot of them would break off,” said Goetz. “I saw hundreds of these broken off tent pegs lying all over the place. I thought there’s got to be a better way to get them out of the ground without breaking them.”
Goetz talked to his sergeant major about it and came up with a design on a paper napkin.
Enter Spc. Ian D’atso and Spc. Shauna Dool, members of the 872nd Maintenance Brigade of Ogden, Utah. They built the prototype during CSTX 2010.
“They essentially gave us a stick figure drawing,” said D’atso, a 91E, machinist from Golden, Colo.
The two specialists set to work to turn a stick figure into a working model.
The first prototype they built didn’t have the needed strength, said D’atso.
With some suggestions from other members of their unit they built a better prototype.
“It works well, said Dool, a 91W, welder form Salt Lake City, Utah. “I had a good time working with D’atso designing it and making it work.”
“I like building something that we could use some creativity in the design then watching it actually work,” Dool added.
“It’s great!” said Goetz when asked about what he thought about his apparatus. “They did a superb job. The design they came up with is better than the one that I drew up for them. I gave them a simple sketch. They put a lot of thought into it. They made it safe.”
He added, “I hope the Army adopts it and I can say ‘I made that for the Army.’”
| Date Taken: |
08.11.2010 |
| Date Posted: |
08.12.2010 21:51 |
| Story ID: |
54491 |
| Location: |
FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: |
79 |
| Downloads: |
2 |
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This work, Prototype built during training exercise, by MSG Claude Dixon, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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