Operation Better Half, the 12th CAB's Combat Spouse Day

Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Ondirae Abdullah-Robinson | Competitors from Operation Better Half do the Cha-Cha Slide while waiting for the points to be tallied by the event officials.  

KATTERBACH, BW, GERMANY

09.20.2012

Story by Spc. Ondirae Abdullah-Robinson 

12th Combat Aviation Brigade

KATTERBACH, Germany - In the heat of battle, a squad of military spouses team up to accomplish their mission. “Shrapnel” is flying everywhere and the enemy is closing in but the members of the squad jump from behind the protective barriers with water balloons in each hand.

This battle was part of a series of intense matches of capture the flag played as part of an entire day dedicated to military spouses. Soldiers from the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade here hosted the 3rd-annual Combat Spouses Day: Operation Better Half Sept. 20 at Franken Kasserne.

There were 36 teams, each made of four women, and had such interesting names as Weapons of Mass Distraction, The Pirates of the European, and The Bone-Crushing Ballerinas.

Lt. Gen. Mark Hertling, the commander of the U.S. Army, Europe also came out to the event to support his wife, Susan Hertling, who competed as a team member of The Golden Girls.

Team Last Minute scored the highest overall winning Operation Better Half. The E-Lemon-atores came in second place and No Better Femmes came in third place. Each team member was awarded a gold, silver or bronze medal and a certificate. The teams posed, each for a picture with Col. Jay Voorhees, the commander of the 12th Combat Aviation Brigade and Command Sgt. Maj. Michael Clowser, the command sergeant major of the brigade.
Each team arrived in a costume for the costume contest. Some of the teams had elaborate costumes. The costume contest winning team, The Army’s Angels, created intricate angel wings from paper plates and had introductory music from the television show Charlie’s Angels with a customized voice over about the Combat Spouse Day.

The crate climb event had the spouses attempting to build a tower from crates from the top down. The object of the event is to build the crate tower as high as possible while only being able to stand on the crates. One member of the team wore a safety harness attached to a rappelling rope, stacking crates on top of each other while climbing ever higher on the stack. A teammate on the ground passed the crates to the climber as she build the tower.

The litter carry had participants low crawling under simulated barbed wire, high stepping through a tire obstacle, in-between a zigzagged area, and low crawling through under more simulated barbed wire. Once at the halfway point each team member had to do ten pushups, through they weren’t required to do them to the Army standard. The teams had to ‘rescue’ the simulated victim, a pile of sandbags, and come back through the course while keeping the sandbags on a litter. Teams were penalized each time the ‘victim’ fell off the litter.

The two most heated and rowdyevents –capture the flag and tug of war– pitted the teams in head-to-head competition.
The tug of war took place in a sand pit that was soaked with water by a soldier with a fire hose.

“Pull your daughter from under that bus,” shouted Alcine Gross, a member of the Delta Divas, to her teammate during the tug of war event.

The capture the flag event had the spouses throwing water balloon at each other while trying to capture a reflective belt that served as the team’s flags. The event underscored the competitiveness of Army Spouses.

Referencing her throwing ability, Lisa Purtle, a member of the Weapons of Mass Distraction shouted at observers. “Did you see those machine guns? Whachaa, Whachaa,” she said as she struck an aggressive pose.

The other events were target shooting with paintball guns, grenade toss, and a written test about common Army subjects.
At the conclusion of all the events,a barbecue and an awards ceremony were held.

“You can’t keep a good woman down,” said Susan Hertling, an army wife for 37 years, in an impromptu speech at the end of the ceremony.

• Date Taken: 09.20.2012
• Date Posted: 09.27.2012 08:19
• Story ID: 95366
• Location: KATTERBACH, BW, DE