Photo By Staff Sgt. Anthony Jones | Soldiers of the 3120th Engineer Support Company, 120th Engineer Battalion, 90th Troop...... read more read more
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OKLAHOMA - In the predawn hours of June 11, Oklahoma Army National Guard Soldiers filed into a helicopter bound for a drop-off point somewhere on their military training base near Muskogee, Oklahoma.
The Soldiers, members of the 3120th Engineer Support Company, rushed through rotor wash blasting from the engines of the waiting CH-47 "Chinook" helicopter, boarding just as the sun began to shine over the horizon. Once on board, the helicopter left the ground behind and hurried the Citizen-Soldiers to their mission – engineer reconnaissance of a creek running through Camp Gruber, the National Guard training area where the 3120th is conducting its annual training.
Capt. Rufus Reed, the 3210th’s commander, said his Soldiers could be called at any time to conduct engineer reconnaissance and training like this is essential to ensuring they are prepared.
“We’re in a reset year,” said Reed, a native of Okemah, Oklahoma. “This is about getting leaders to plan missions and get into manuals. Recon is a big part of our job. It is a skill that will perish if we don’t practice it."
Reed’s company is focusing on building individual Soldiers’ skills as well as mission planning. Part of the day’s training for 1st Platoon focused on map reading and navigating from the helicopter’s landing zone at Greenleaf Lake, on the southern edge of Camp Gruber, to the creek bed several hundred meters northwest.
Staff Sgt. Matthew Edwards, 1st Platoon’s senior non-commissioned officer and a Paden, Oklahoma, resident, stressed the importance of map reading skills to his Soldier throughout the training.
“Everything is grids, start points and end points,” the 15-year National Guard veteran said. “From the lowest to the highest rank, these skills are part of what being a Soldier is about, no matter what your job is.”
The Soldiers, equipped with rifles, rucksacks and fighting loads, road marched through the hills of Camp Gruber to a rally point where the Soldiers grounded the gear and broke into two groups, moving into the thick underbrush. One group moved southwest and the other northwest. As the northwest group moved through the trees and scrub brush, Edwards showed his Soldiers how to shoot azimuths with a compass and stay on course in difficult terrain.
“This training builds confidence in Soldiers,” Edwards said. “It lets them know if they get lost they can look at a map, get a rough idea of where they are and shoot an azimuth and get back.”
Spc. Thieu Nguyen, of Oklahoma City, serves as a horizontal construction engineer in 1st Platoon and was chosen to make his way down the steep banks to conduct a survey of the creek bed’s composition. He and other junior Soldiers collected notes on the creek’s soil, flow and sturdiness of the banks to report to their superiors.
“The hands-on training was good,” said Nguyen, who is studying criminal justice at the University of Central Oklahoma. “It was good to get familiarized with the skills needed for a recon. Learning pace counts and how to determine the flow, direction, speed and depth of the creek.”
First Platoon’s two groups surveyed the creek and met up when they completed their portions. From there, the platoon moved back out to the roadway, then road marched back to the main camp.
Edwards, the platoon’s top sergeant, said while building individual Soldier’s skills, the mission served as a confidence and moral booster for his troops.
“When we do this, [we push ourselves] as a Soldier,” Edwards said. “You see where you stand and test your stamina, physical fitness and at the end of it, Soldiers get to look back at all they did and say, ‘Hey, I completed all that,’.”
| Date Taken: | 06.11.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.15.2015 13:11 |
| Story ID: | 166499 |
| Location: | OK, US |
| Web Views: | 195 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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