Photo By Chief Warrant Officer Mark Houdlette | Soldiers in Maine have access to well maintained ranges and indoor simulators...... read more read more
AUGUSTA, Maine - Four Maine National Guard soldiers maintain, update, and manage over 2,500 acres of training grounds, as well as additional simulator equipment for the entire Maine Army National Guard.
Training Sites maintain the eight training locations spread throughout the state. Their mission is to first manage the different training areas, including live fire ranges; second is to support the units in the field with either personnel or Training Aids Devices Simulators and Simulations, according to Sgt. 1st Class Todd Kiilsgaard, noncommissioned officer in charge for Training Sites.
“I have always enjoyed training soldiers,” he said. “When I was in line units, I always thought there has got to be ways to enhance this training, to make it more realistic, to make it better. I realized, this was the unit that can do that, and this is what I have really always wanted to do.”
Not only do Kiilsgaard and his crew maintain all of the sites, they also attend different workshops and schools that specialize in the latest and current wartime tactics so they can incorporate those into their training aids and simulations.
“We try to train as we fight, and by adding our different training aids and devices, we can help get the soldiers a more realistic training experience before they are in a wartime mission,” said Kiilsgaard, who lives in Limington.
As deployments start winding down, the money available to prepare soldiers for conflict engagement becomes significantly less. That’s where the TADSS equipment stays effective.
“The fact that deployments are winding down, correlates directly to a lack of training dollars,” said Kiilsgaard. “Units aren’t going out to do the cool exercises as much. Not as much fuel to go out and travel around or use the equipment. Simulators and devises are right up their alley. Soldiers will be able to use us to help replicate the training they can’t get to the field to do, and we can do it here at Camp Keyes, or we can bring it their armory, which saves them even more time.”
Kiilsgaard said that one of the main challenges his unit faces is a lack of personnel. To combat this, last October they put together a pilot program idea. They asked the major commands to attach one of their soldiers to training sites. Training Sites would own that soldier for the year, taking care of them administratively, annual training and drills.
Staff Sgt. Chad Haskell, TADSS operator with the unit, thinks this program is excellent as they often find themselves spread awfully thin throughout the year.
“We train them to counter improvised explosive devices. We train them on all of the simulator equipment we have, from TADSS, convoy operations, the humvee rollover, fire arms, engagement skills, shoot house. When they go back to their unit, and they want to use this stuff, they have someone who is already trained on it, and can take them when we aren’t able.”
The Sidney native said he thought it was a beneficial program, and that the soldiers they have trained so far have caught on quickly, and that the commanders have shown an interest in continuing this for the future.
“During this year long period, we can teach them as much as we possibly can about how to operate the different TADSS we have,” said Haskell. “This is our pilot year, we have four soldiers, all specialists, and they have been great. From the start we incorporate them into our unit. We do all their administrative work, and start training them as well. Once they start getting comfortable with the equipment we have them training actual soldiers in the different units. As they get better, we can have them train on their own, bring them in on orders and run training scenarios. While they are learning, they are also getting hands on experience.”
These soldiers can go back to their units and not only assist with training, but they can also help their units learn about some of the training possibilities that Maine is capable of.
Kiilsgaard said that one of the most underutilized training simulators that Maine has, Virtual Battle Space 3 is currently the most widely used in the regular army. He points to a lack of understanding of its capabilities in the guard, and hopes these younger soldiers can help them spread the word.
“We are working on improving the way we train, one soldier at a time,” he said. “We may not have results immediately, but in the next few years hopefully this can help make their training more beneficial and more realistic.”
| Date Taken: | 07.09.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 07.10.2014 11:17 |
| Story ID: | 135721 |
| Location: | AUGUSTA, ME, US |
| Hometown: | LIMINGTON, ME, US |
| Hometown: | SIDNEY, ME, US |
| Web Views: | 194 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Guard reinforces focus on training, by SSG Angela Parady, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT