SAN VICENTE, El Salvador – A platoon of recruits, from the Salvadoran army’s 5th Infantry Brigade, stood in formation ready to execute their mortar drills on the edge of a dirt soccer field. But before they are given the command, Lt. Oscar Gomez, the lead training officer today, sends them on a sprint across the field. Most return with smiles on their faces.
“It is good for them to run so much,” Gomez said.
The recruits run everywhere. Even during today’s weapons training, platoons ran up and down hills, especially when the instructors thought they needed more motivation.
The training is intense and two U.S. soldiers have been invited to observe their training, 1st Lt. Robert Lee, of the Texas Army National Guard, and Staff Sgt. Hector Torres, from the U.S. Army Reserve’s 478th Tactical Airborne Civil Affairs Battalion, out of Perrine, Fla.
Lee is currently assigned as the Information Officer for the 130th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from the North Carolina Army National Guard. Torres is the brigade civil affairs staff non-commissioned officer in charge. The 130th MEB is here providing command and control for Beyond the Horizon 2011, a 4-month-long joint-service training exercise that is providing humanitarian and civic assistance to the people of El Salvador.
The command is given and the platoon of mortar men jumps into action, setting their base plates and tubes in the correct configuration and adjusting their tubes using the sights. They are in a race against the clock and not all of the crews finish on time — pushups and a sprint are their punishment.
These recruits are on their fourth day of weapons familiarization training, which includes: two different kinds of mortars; the M203 and M79 grenade launchers; the M-60 machine gun; several rocket launchers, and sniper rifles. Every recruit has been cross-trained on each piece of equipment and can tear down and reassemble them all, as well as cite their capabilities.
“The training is very well organized and the soldiers are very disciplined,” Lee said. “It seems like (these soldiers) really want to be here.
“Us being here is mostly an information exchange.” Lee adds that, while the training is emphasized at the engineering sites and medical and dental clinics being conducted, the U.S. Army can still learn from how the Salvadorans train their army.
As for the recruits, they do not see the qualities that foreign observers bring, nor do many of them understand the strong ties that bind El Salvador and the United States. They only see the training being conducted and the prospects that their military training may bring them in the future.
One soldier, Jose Alvaro, wished to follow his family’s tradition of being an infantryman. After hearing about it all of his life, his wish was to see for himself what the army was like. Soldier Alvaro finds the training he is receiving “magnificent.”
As the soldiers run in formation back to the 5th Brigade headquarters for lunch, Lee and Torres run in the front of the formation with the Salvadoran officers. It seems that leading from the front is a quality that these two armies both covet.
| Date Taken: |
04.05.2011 |
| Date Posted: |
04.07.2011 11:16 |
| Story ID: |
68406 |
| Location: |
SAN VICENTE, SV |
| Web Views: |
136 |
| Downloads: |
0 |
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This work, American troops observe, learn from Salvadoran army weapons training, by CPT Jonathan Ashbaugh, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
