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    UPDF, Georgia NG soldiers carve DZs, understanding out of Ugandan bush during AD11

    UPDF, Georgia NG soldiers carve DZs, understanding out of Ugandan bush during AD11

    Photo By Master Sgt. Brock Jones | 1st Lt. Steven Russell of Dahlonega, Georgia, a member of Troop A, 3rd Squadron, 108th...... read more read more

    SOROTI, UGANDA

    04.13.2011

    Courtesy Story

    U.S. Army Southern European Task Force, Africa

    By Sgt. 1st Class Brock Jones

    SOROTI, Uganda – Soldiers from the Uganda Peoples Defense Forces and Georgia National Guard are training and living together in the bush north of Soroti as part of ATLAS DROP 11.

    Georgia Army National Guard Infantrymen, cavalry scouts and pathfinders assigned to the 3rd Squadron, 108th Cavalry Regiment, 560th Battlefield Surveillance Brigade, and the Soldiers from UPDF’s 27th Infantry Battalion are training alongside each other on patrolling and clearing aerial-resupply drop zones in three locations in the Olilim and Kapelebyong areas during the two-week exercise.

    “We’ve been (here at the Drop Zone Red in Kapelebyong), working with the 27th Infantry, training with them on pathfinder operations and some of our troop tactics and procedures,” said 1st Lt. Steven Russell of Dahlonega, Georgia, a member of Troop A, 3rd Sqdn., 108th Cav., Georgia ARNG, who serves as the pathfinder team leader and lead instructor for the UPDF training team at DZ Red. “In addition to that, we’ve been working hand in hand with the UPDF. They have been showing us how to conduct field operations and how they operate in tactical and combat environments.”

    DZ Red (Kapelebyong), along with two other drop zones will be used during three days of live aerial-resupply practice drops that will conclude AD11. The training conducted during this year’s iteration of the annual exercise, sponsored by U.S. Army Africa, will increase the capability of both UPDF and U.S. forces to resupply Soldiers operating in remote areas.

    UPDF Lieutenant Stephen Omuya, instructor from Olilim Training School, said that the training conducted as part of AD11 will be helpful in whatever environment Soldiers may find themselves working in.

    “This is very important for us to have such technical and tactical training exercises,” he said.

    In training and living together, the U.S. and Ugandan Soldiers have come to know each other better, both as professional Soldiers and as people.

    The UPDF soldiers have been eager to learn and many of them have been filling up notebooks with information presented during classes, even remaining after to get any notes they may have missed, said Staff Sgt. Jeremiah Stafford, a native of Charleston, S.C., who serves as a pathfinder with 3rd Sqdn., 108th Cav. Regt.

    “The UPDF soldiers are all very eager to learn,” he said.

    The main challenge the Ugandan and U.S. soldiers training at DZ Red have noted has to do with communicating the technical nature of aerial delivery operations.

    “Our biggest challenge out here has been the language barrier, absolutely,” said Stafford.

    To help with the language differences, one of the UPDF noncommissioned officers stepped forward to translate the U.S. instructors’ English into Swahili, and a few of the U.S. soldiers figured out their own means to communicate.

    “The guys came up with some training aids to help with the language barrier,” said Staff Sgt. Gabriel Brooks of Douglasville, Ga., who serves as a section leader with Troop A, 3rd Sqdn., 108th Cav. During some of the breaks in the busy training schedule a few of the Georgia Soldiers created a miniature C-130 Hercules aircraft and a Blackhawk helicopter with rotors that actually turn out of water bottles, duct tape and sticks. They used the models to provide the UPDF soldiers with visuals means of grasping the technical information they were presenting.

    Working together to make the training as beneficial and pertinent as possible to each soldier on the ground at DZ Red, the UPDF and U.S. forces have not only become more proficient at establishing drop zones but also how to see challenges as opportunities that, if overcome, can lead to greater understanding and perhaps even friendship.

    “(We are getting) an immense sense of fulfillment and enjoyment from working with a very professional force, getting to see a beautiful part of our world and getting a tremendous amount of multicultural and multinational experience and working with one of our strong allies,” said Russell.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 04.13.2011
    Date Posted: 04.18.2011 10:29
    Story ID: 68910
    Location: SOROTI, UG

    Web Views: 76
    Downloads: 0

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