Photo By Staff Sgt. Micah VanDyke | A squad of soldiers with the 744th Engineer Company based out of Ogden, Utah, are...... read more read more
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FORT HUNTER LIGGETT, Calif. — Combat engineers from the 744th Engineer Company trained on job-specific tasks and Soldier skills while attending the first Combat Support Training Exercise of 2015 at Fort Hunter Liggett, California, Feb. 21-March 11.
The unit, based out of Ogden, Utah, trained on mine clearing and routine route clearance specific to their military occupational specialty. They also focused on several basic warrior tasks and drills, to include squad level dismounted movement, basic combat buddy aid and force protection.
As part of the seven-day, real-world operation portion of the exercise one of the goals was to put units into a deployment mindset. For example, if a Soldier sustained a simulated injury, the Soldier was removed from the unit throughout the full medical process. This left the unit without that Soldier to use on missions for an extended period of time.
“From the minute we got to the training area, we were hitting it hard day-after-day. When we were getting hit and they’d medevac [medical evacuation] guys out, you’d have to simulate missing guys for 24 hours,” said Spc. Benjamin Dickman, a combat engineer with 3rd Platoon, 744th Eng. Company.
During the assault on an enemy holding the high ground objective, the unit used M113 armored personnel carriers to begin their offensive against the enemy role-players and then dismounted to locate and eliminate the threat.
“Not knowing exactly where the enemy was and having to find them is just like a real-world situation – that was probably the best part,” said Sgt. Taylor Bosen, a combat engineer and squad leader with 3rd Platoon, 744th Eng. Company. “It was tough terrain just like being overseas.”
Having the support of the 189th Infantry Brigade from Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington, acting as their Observer-Controller-Trainers added a key factor of realism to the training.
OCTs constructed tough situations for the combat engineers, ensuring the soldiers were ready for a wide variety of scenarios they might face in a deployed environment.
“I think these are the best OCTs we’ve had so far. They don’t [distract] us too much to where it degrades the training, but they give us enough to where we’re faced with different situations, and we have to approach it from different angles,” said Dickman.
As the engineers neared mission completion, the OCTs engaged the soldiers in a firefight and informed the squad that the squad leader had been injured. This forced the squad to take action to complete the mission and perform buddy aid on the side of a steep hill in the training area and reinforced the notion that all soldiers must be ready to fill leadership roles.
“If you’re relying on one guy, then the rest of the team isn’t getting that same training, and when a real-world situation happens and they’re not trained to jump in when they need to, plans are going to fall apart,” said Dickman.
He said they took away a lot of knowledge from the CSTX, which is especially useful with their deployment availability window to go overseas coming up.
“I’m really looking forward to getting back. I learned what we need to touch on during our monthly drills and making sure they’re on point with all the training that we’ve had here,” said Dickman.
| Date Taken: | 03.12.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 03.17.2015 15:55 |
| Story ID: | 157255 |
| Location: | FORT HUNTER LIGGETT, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 919 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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