Photo By Spc. Sharla Lewis | Soldiers with 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division participate in a...... read more read more
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FORT HOOD, Texas – Ranger School hopefuls with 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division continued their three-week preparatory course with land navigation, advanced squad-level infantry movement drills and an obstacle course at Fort Hood, Texas last week. These exercises will tie up the final days of the course before completion.
Under the cover of darkness Feb. 24, the class arrived at the land navigation course with maps, compasses and protractors in hand to plot and find points hidden among the training area’s creeks, dense overgrowth of brush, plateaus and clearings.
Instructors gave each trooper their points and within the hour, they were well on their way to their first target.
Spc. Royce Barham, with Company B, 3rd Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment and a native of Greensboro, N.C. and Ranger Instructor Sgt. 1st Class Cong Le, also with Co. B and native of Chicago, Ill., set off on foot together toward Barham’s first point, located to the north of his start point. Though Ranger School at Fort Benning, Ga. doesn’t forbid following trails and roads, the instructors encourage the students to use as much natural terrain to guide them as they can.
“This is advanced land navigation,” Le said to Barham. “Look at your map. What does it say?”
“That I have to pass through a clearing,” replied Barham.
“Alright, and look around you, what do you see?” asked Le.
“A clearing,” Barham said.
“Right. What’s that over there?” Le asked, turning and pointing to the wood line behind them. “Dense vegetation, right? Look at your map again. What does it say? That your clearing is on the edge of dense vegetation; so, what does that mean? That means that you’re on the right track; you’re going the right way, good job,” Le said.
Le said that besides using basic land navigation techniques, terrain association, a term used to describe associations between the markings on the map with the terrain on the ground, may be the difference between life and death when in a hostile area.
Land navigation is vital to an Army Ranger and the pre-Ranger course provides valuable insight into the school.
“This has made it much easier,” Barham said. “I made a few mistakes, but using terrain association makes it much less complicated and faster.”
After the students returned to the starting point, the group ate and prepared for the tactical movement and ambush exercises.
Splitting the class into two squads, the Ranger instructors selected individuals to hold leadership positions who in turn assigned each person a job or position. Soon, reconnaissance teams were on their way to scout out the best route to their objective and shortly after that, the squad followed the path designated by the scouts.
The thick, humid air had cleared since their overcast road march of the week prior, and the men were now laying in the dense brush of the Fort Hood training grounds, waiting for directions from Spc. Geoffrey Bruno, their selected squad leader. Occasionally, a student’s head would bob under the warm sun in a telltale sign of exhaustion, and from more than 25 yards away, a hawk-eyed instructor would yell, “You’re not falling asleep on me, are you Rangers? Wake up.”
Bruno listened and took detailed notes on everything the instructors told him, then disseminated that information to his team leaders who in turn walked to each member of the team and directed them toward their next movement. The group packed up and moved on to their next location, only a few yards from their objective but hidden amongst an entanglement of bushes, trees and brambles.
From a nearby road, Le yelled, “Bang, bang, bang!” simulating weapons fire. Almost immediately, the entire squad charged from behind bushes and mounds, ‘returning fire’ as they crossed the road and disappearing again on the opposite side. Two of the men pounced on Le, throwing him to the ground and searching him for ‘weapons.’
Once the students finished searching him, he called the group together, reviewed the day’s exercises and packed up for the road march back.
About a week remains for the candidates between now and the completion of the course.
Though the course is designed to prepare Soldiers to maneuver as part of a unit comprised of only Rangers, the Soldiers participating in 3rd Brigade’s pre-Ranger School course will return to their units as experts in their field and will have to apply the techniques they learn there to their mechanized infantry or armor companies.
“You can take what you learn at Ranger School and apply it to any combat arms element in the Army,” Sgt. 1st Class Jose Mortenson, the head instructor for the course said. “These guys will be able to come back to Fort Hood after school is done and teach what they learned to their platoons.”
| Date Taken: | 02.24.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 02.29.2012 13:43 |
| Story ID: | 84506 |
| Location: | KILLEEN, TX, US |
| Web Views: | 846 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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