Photo By 1st Lt. Brianne Roudebush | Spc. Erika Holmes and Spc. Jasmine Manning, supply specialists with the 49th Military...... read more read more
OAHU, Hawaii – Surrounded by officers, senior enlisted noncommissioned officers, and Soldiers with years of experience, Spc. Erika Holmes, a supply specialist with the 49th Military Police Brigade (Homeland Response Force) jumped right into the action during her first annual training event; Vigilant Guard/Makani Pahili 2015 on the Hawaiian Islands May 31-June 8.
“She hit the ground running,” Sgt. Tami Watson, the property book HRF noncommissioned officer in charge for the 49th MP Brigade, said. “She asked a lot of questions and was actively engaged.”
Holmes was part of the logistics team during the exercise. Using digital and analog maps and charts as well as a joint task force portal for communication, the logistics team coordinated and tracked the supplies required by subordinate units.
“I haven’t done anything like this before,” Holmes said. “This is totally all new stuff so I’m becoming comfortable with asking questions and not being afraid to speak up if I don’t understand.”
Holmes, who says she is naturally a shy person, surprised everyone when she decided to enlist in the Army National Guard during her sophomore year of high school. She said it was her dad who encouraged her to join the military.
“He wanted me to be able to get out and explore the world,” the 20-year-old said. “He knows I’m shy and he wanted me to have those experiences.”
She chose to do the split-training option: attending basic between her junior and senior year and then returning to complete the rest of her job training after graduation.
Her first drill with the 49th MP Brigade was Dec. 2013. Overall, she said she has had a very positive experience in the Army so far.
Both Watson and her supervisor, Master Sgt. Paul Bauer, commended her for her great attention to detail.
“She has done very well,” Bauer, the brigade logistics noncommissioned officer in charge, said. “She didn’t know anything about [the HRF] at all but she has picked it up quickly and she accomplishes the tasks she’s given 100 percent.”
Holmes, a nursing school student at Sierra College, has enjoyed working with the HRF.
“I had never heard about these different types of units, so when I came into a HRF unit, I wasn’t sure what to expect,” the Roseville, Calif. resident said. “I think it’s cool that we would be one of the first units to help with natural disasters in our region.”
Throughout the exercise, she has learned about the different terminology used in disaster response as well as the structure of the HRF and how the different teams work together to accomplish the mission.
The logistics section was given the opportunity to get out of the command center for an afternoon to tour some of the training sites in order to have a clearer understanding of the roles that the search and extraction teams, the decontamination teams and the medical teams have in a disaster response.
Holmes said the tour was very beneficial in that it provided her with a visual picture of what was happening outside the operations center.
“It’s good to get this experience because we don’t usually do this kind of training during drill weekend,” she said. “If we were to be called to a real-world mission and hadn’t gone through these exercises, we would have no idea what to expect.”
Watson, who worked closely with Holmes throughout the exercise, said Holmes had a good grasp on the exercise as a whole. She appreciated that Holmes was a team player and was very competent at applying her skills to the tasks given.
“She’s pretty excited and eager to learn,” Watson said. “She doesn’t wait around for someone to tell her what to do, which is important because we move so fast and there are lots of bit and pieces to track so we need people who work hard like she does.”
| Date Taken: | 06.06.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.06.2015 19:16 |
| Story ID: | 165743 |
| Location: | OAHU, HI, US |
| Hometown: | ROSEVILLE, CA, US |
| Web Views: | 62 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
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