CAMP ATTERBURY, Ind. – “This is a stress fire,” said Platoon Sergeant Staff Sgt. Cody Wooten from a berm overlooking 67 soldiers and airmen below him. “It’s nothing personal; we’re not trying to hurt your feelings.
“You’re standing on the 500-yard line,” continued Wooten, pointing with all five fingers at the targets off in the distance, barely visible through the darkness and early morning fog. “You will do three-to-five second rushes on the way to your targets.” The troopers will have to sprint a few seconds at a time, fall to the ground for cover, and sprint again, minimizing exposure to enemy fire.
“When you get to the 100-yard line you load a magazine and fire at the target directly in front of you. Reload the second magazine and continue firing until you have fired all of your rounds,” said Wooten as the troops struggle to look past each other and the fog to the finish line.
“I see they brought up some chow for you guys,” he said, pointing at a table of olive drab, steaming containers of eggs and potatoes. “I suggest you eat after you’re done so you don’t puke on the lane.”
The soldiers and airmen are part of Provincial Reconstruction Team Kapisa, currently training for deployment to Kapisa province in Afghanistan. The “Stress Fire” range is run by Wooten and the Range Training Team at Camp Atterbury Joint Maneuver Training Center in central Indiana.
PRT Kapisa successfully completed this new training requirement Aug. 24 and is one of the first units to run this range since it was implemented at Camp Atterbury roughly two weeks ago.
“We’re taking them out of the normal ranges where everything is nice and calm and trying to see if they can still function under some pressures,” said Wooten.
“The reason why we set up this stress course is to make sure when these guys get over to Afghanistan, that they’d have some type of experience actually firing their weapons with a little bit of stress involved,” continued Wooten. “We want to get their heart rate elevated and get their adrenaline going to make sure that they can do simple tasks like loading a magazine, placing their weapon on fire and making a precision shot. It can be a day and night difference when you’re all amped up.”
PRT Kapisa, along with French Brigade Task Force Lafayette, will be taking on an infrastructure rebuilding and governance mentoring role while in country, but their commander believes that they need to be prepared for anything.
“Personally I’ve never done anything like this before, I’m an Airman, I’m a navigator by trade so I’m not used to being on the ground doing maneuvers and utilizing weapons,” said PRT Kapisa Commander Air Force Lt. Col. Michael Sierco. “Many of my men out here are also airmen, so it’s invaluable for what we will be doing out in the field. A lot of times we’ll be out doing dismounted foot patrols and we can come under hostel fire so this is very critical to our mission.
“The members of this team are non-organic; most of them have never worked together before. We have members of the active-duty Air Force; we have members of active-duty Army; we have Army National Guard, and we have Army Reserve Civil Affairs. The whole point of this training is to give our troops the first hand knowledge practice with the weapons as many have never used them before, as well as tactics.”
The soldiers and airmen of PRT Kapisa came together from different walks of life on Aug. 1. Their knowledge and experience varies widely across their ranks. The training scenario also gave the service members of PRT Kapisa an opportunity to mesh together as a joint unit.
“The training today was one of the first opportunities for us to train jointly as a unit and for us to see and learn from [each other’s] expertise,” said 2nd Lt. Ashley Skillman, public affairs officer for PRT Kapisa. “Hopefully we’re never in this situation; primarily, our mission is to win the hearts and minds of the people. However, if we are [in this situation], this is good preparation for how we would handle it.”
| Date Taken: | 08.26.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 08.26.2010 12:35 |
| Story ID: | 55203 |
| Location: | CAMP ATTERBURY, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 138 |
| Downloads: | 11 |
This work, Stress Fire, soldiers Engage Targets Down Range under Stress, by John Crosby, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
