173rd Airborne soldiers jump in Ukraine Rapid Trident 2011

Courtesy Photo | Staff Sgt. Travis Surber, a native of Franklin County, Va., and a paratrooper with the 173rd Brigade Combat Team’s Battle Company of the 2nd Battalion 503rd Infantry Regiment parachutes out of a C-130 Hercules Transport Aircraft and into the Ukraine sky. This marks the first time the “Sky Soldiers” of the 173rd have jumped in Ukraine and they’ll be training and conducting multinational airborne operations, a situational training exercise and a field training exercise here through Aug. 5 as part of Rapid Trident 2011. Rapid Trident 2011 is a U.S. Army Europe led, multi-national exercise taking place at the International Peacekeeping and Security Center in Yavoriv, Ukraine. It is designed to promote regional stability and security, strengthen international military partnering and foster trust while improving interoperability between participating nations. Rapid Trident 2011 involves approximately 1,600 personnel. In addition to the U.S. Army Europe and Ukraine, participants include: Latvia, Belarus, Moldova, Slovenia, Canada, Poland, Serbia, the U.K., Lithuania, Estonia, California and Utah National Guard and U.S. Air Force Europe. Rapid Trident supports interoperability among Ukraine, the United States, NATO and Partnership for Peace member nations. This exercise will help prepare participants to operate successfully in a joint, multinational, integrated environment with host- nation support from civil and governmental agencies. Rapid Trident is a part of U.S. European Command’s Joint Training and Exercise Program, designed to enhance joint combined interoperability with allied and partner nations. The exercise also supports Ukraine’s Annual National Program to achieve interoperability with NATO and commitments made in the annual NATO-Ukraine work plan. The 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team is one of the U.S. Army’s most highly decorated units having particularly distinguished itself during the Vietnam War and having produced fifteen Congressional Medal of Honor recipients including Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta, the first living recipient of the Medal of Honor since the Vietnam War.  

YAVOROV, UKRAINE

07.26.2011

Courtesy Story

U.S. Army Europe and Africa     

By: Spc. Michael Sword
173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team Public Affairs Office

Yavoriv, UKRAINE – More than 200 paratroopers completed the first multinational airborne operation of Exercise Rapid Trident 11 at the International Peacekeeping and Security center here, July 26.

The U.S. paratroopers of Battle Company, 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team, U.S. Army Europe were joined by soldiers from Ukraine, the U.K., Moldova, Poland and Canada.

For many of the Battle Company soldiers, it was the first time jumping alongside partner nations as well as their first time having a foreign, in this case Polish, jumpmaster.

“This is my first time working with this many partner nations and this is my first time being a jumpmaster alongside a partner nation,” said Maj. Jarrett Hunter, operations officer for 2nd Battalion, 503rd Infantry Regiment, and a native of Columbus, Ga.

Though the paratroopers speak different languages, the actions remain the same.

“There are some minor differences in the way we do things, but they coordinated well with our jumpmasters and if there was any slip in the translation of anything, then our jumpmasters would repeat it,” said Spc. Harry Spore, of Memphis, Tenn., also of Battle Company. “Actually it’s probably one of the best exits I’ve ever had.”

“We started out with rehearsals and a lot of them go through the same commands so it worked out really well,” Hunter said.

“They use the same hand and arm signals, they did a great job I thought, so it felt real good,” said 1st Lt. Colby Park, a platoon leader for Battle Company., of Salt Lake City.

Pfc. Dominick Kuczynski, from Phoenix, of Battle Company, helped bridge the language gap, translating for the Polish soldiers.

“It was a good icebreaker for me to go up to the Polish group and introduce myself and start speaking Polish to them,” he said. “I am Polish as you can tell by my last name, so it was a pretty awesome experience talking to them and socializing with them before the jump.”

It became apparent early, however, that no matter one’s country or language, there’s an automatic sense of kinship that gets built between airborne paratroopers and it was on display from the initial brief to the drop zone.

“It was my first time jumping from a big aircraft but it was great I liked it,” 1st Lt. Sehii Shulilvov, of Ukraine’s 95th Airborne Brigade said.

“I think having airborne in common provides a different camaraderie,” Park said. “You have something in common that you can relate to and talk about whether that be your parachutes compared to our parachutes, how you land compared to how we land, it definitely has a lot of talking points.”

“It’s a great time, it’s motivating for our soldiers, and for the partner nation soldiers,” Hunter said. “It takes a unique person to throw themselves out of a perfectly good aircraft and that right there will bring different nations’ paratroopers together.”

At the end of the day, all soldiers and countries involved were able to train together and learn more about each other.

“There’s some minor differences in the way we do things but we’re all out here to jump together and get to know each other,” Spore said. “For them show us how they train and for us to show them how we train.”

“I think it’s great because in both theaters this unit (173rd ABCT) has been deployed in we’ve had to work with different partner nations,” Hunter said. “This gives the youngest paratrooper on the ground a chance to understand how our partner nations work and get to understand the level of professionalism that they have and the partner nations get to understand the level of professionalism we have.”

“It’s an excellent experience,” Kuczynski said. “I was curious to see how our allies actually work together and how they jump and the different techniques they use.”

• Date Taken: 07.26.2011
• Date Posted: 08.01.2011 04:17
• Story ID: 74596
• Location: YAVOROV, UA