Photo By Maj. Dianna Pegeuese | A Chilean and American soldier pose together to display the partnership between the...... read more read more
By U.S. Army Capt. Dianna Pegeuese
314th Press Camp Headquarters
SAN JUAN OPICO, El Salvador — The partnership of two nations during Beyond the Horizon 2015 is providing an excellent opportunity to allow military engineers from two nations, the United States and Chile, to collaborate with one common goal in mind, building schools for a local community in need.
BTH15 is a joint Southern Command and government of El Salvador humanitarian and civic assistance mission. Task Force Northstar is carrying out the mission with the assistance of other partnering nations to include Chile, Colombia, Brazil and Canada. The purpose of BTH15 is to provide medical and engineering support, as well as show the ongoing commitment and partnership with El Salvador.
Combat engineers from Chile share their engineering capabilities and knowledge with both U.S. and Salvadoran military engineers. The overarching focus for both nations is to learn various skill sets from each other while creating a better educational environment in areas of need throughout El Salvador.
“Our task was to come here and assist as needed with the construction of this site in San Juan Opico. For our duration we were assigned multiple tasks in assisting the U.S. engineers,” said Chilean Capt. Alvaro Bustos Cruzat.
During BTH15, the Chilean military has provided a total of five four-man teams for two-week rotations to assist in numerous engineering projects alongside U.S. Army and Air Force engineers. The focus of the unit during this mission is to share skills and provide engineering support.
Beyond the Horizon is currently on its fifth rotation, therefore most of the schools are more than fifty percent complete. Construction engineers from the 302nd Engineer Company (vertical) located in San Antonio, Texas, faced many challenges when they were assigned the San Juan Opico site.
“We were always used to building structures from the ground up, we never had to work with a semi completed project,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joseph Capesius, construction engineering technician, 302nd Engineer Company (V).
While the U.S. engineers adapted to their challenges, the Chileans also faced their own unique challenges, such as being experienced in combat engineering and not construction.
This mission has been very different for them, but has been a great learning experience. We noticed the Americans were organized during this project, we plan to take those skills back to our country, said Cruzate. Prior to their mission in El Salvador, the Chileans were providing engineering support with a mudslide that occurred in their country earlier this year.
Engineers from both countries can agree that communicating with each other has been extremely easy while working together. A majority of the soldiers assigned with the 302nd Engineer Company (V) are Spanish speakers, which allowed for better communication and tasking for both nations.
Cruzate said, “The American military has a lot of Spanish speakers, this made the job go very smoothly for us both.”
The Chileans and Americans have expressed they would like to come back to the location where the schools were built to see the lasting impact it’s made on the residents of San Juan Opico.
“I would like to come back to this location with my daughter and tell her I built this with American soldiers,” said Cruzate ... .I’m very proud to have worked here.”
| Date Taken: | 05.26.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 05.27.2015 22:04 |
| Story ID: | 164746 |
| Location: | SV |
| Web Views: | 147 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Two nations, one goal, by MAJ Dianna Pegeuese, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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