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    PSD Fine Tunes Soldier Skills

    PSD Fine Tunes Soldier Skills

    Photo By Spc. Benjamin Fox | Personal Security Detachment Soldiers with the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry...... read more read more

    By Pfc. Ben Fox
    3rd BCT, 1st Cav. Div. PAO

    CAMP BUEHRING, Kuwait – The brigade command sergeant major waited patiently for his Personal Security Detachment to arrive. He was about to attend a graduation ceremony for the Iraqi Police.

    A Soldier from Command Sgt. Maj. Donald Felt's brigade, the 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, arrived and escorted him to a vehicle waiting just outside of the door. The vehicle was part of a convoy that took him to the ceremony.

    When the convoy arrived, the detachment dismounted and escorted the Felt to the ceremony. As he and his security approached the graduates, a man with a rifle appeared from out of a crowd, aiming his weapon at the Soldiers.

    Immediately, the PSD Soldiers closest to Felt reacted accordingly and ran him back to the convoy, shielding his back with their bodies. The others with the detachment returned fire and bounded back to their vehicles as more enemies began to show themselves.

    Felt's vehicle took off as soon as he was inside, followed by another vehicle in the convoy responsible for providing security.

    The Soldiers in the fire fight broke contact, loaded their vehicles and rallied with the rest of the PSD down the road at a designated emergency stopping point.

    After they regrouped, the PSD escorted Felt back to where they started. On the way, an improvised explosive device detonated near the convoy, catching all five vehicles on fire.

    The detachment dismounted and half pulled security while the other half surrounded Felt and rushed him to a one-story building close by. A four-man team broke off from the group and cleared the first room in the house. Felt was hurried into the room shortly after.

    The rest of the security element continued to pull security as they returned to the house to regroup and secure the surrounding area.

    After the excitement was over, Felt walked 50 meters back to the building he started from to repeat the process over again -- this time with live rounds.

    The entire ordeal was a situational training exercise at Camp Buehring, Kuwait, Oct. 7, meant to sharpen the skills of the brigade's PSD in the areas of marksmanship, close quarters combat, room clearing, offensive driving and the protection of a principle, said Staff Sgt. Jeff Young, a native of Lockhart, Texas.

    Young participated in the exercise and said the group has done this training before, but this was "the more advanced side of it."

    Spc. Tim Sweezea, a native of Zillah, Wash., was the lead driver in the convoy and said this training was among the best he had ever received.

    "This sharpened all of our skills," said Sweezea, who said he now feels the team is at the point where they know their jobs inside and out.

    Aside from knowing their own jobs, Sweezea said they are also familiar with each others jobs in the event the team has to step up to the plate during a mission.

    "If anything goes wrong, we know what to do and how to react to it in the professional way we have trained," he said.

    Pfc. Lazaro Dominguez, a native of Tucson, Ariz., and a dismount with the rear vehicle in the convoy, said the training helped him to build trust in his team and vice versa.

    The PSD has been together for approximately a year, so the cohesion between the Soldiers was already strong before the training, said Dominguez. With the exercise, the team was able to iron out any inconsistency they had before moving forward into a combat zone.

    "Once we got out there we worked out our final quirks," he said.

    Felt, after the exercise was complete, said the way his Soldiers performed in the training exercise "validates my confidence" in the PSD, who will be protecting him during future missions in Iraq.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 10.07.2006
    Date Posted: 10.27.2006 08:46
    Story ID: 8157
    Location: CAMP BUEHRING, KW

    Web Views: 180
    Downloads: 127

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