Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Felix Fimbres | A role player makes gestures during a pay operation exercise at Fort Bragg, N.C., June...... read more read more
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FORT BRAGG, N.C. – U.S. Army Reserve Soldiers assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, U.S. Army Civil Affairs & Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) with skill sets in finance, signal, civil affairs and psychological operations spent their monthly battle training assembly weekend learning how to work together as a team to execute a multi-faceted training mission here June 27, 2015.
As they formed into small teams to board a nearby UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, which would take them to a remote training site, the Soldiers began their pre-combat checks and went over details of the mission ahead.
The training combined multiple military occupational specialties together to see how their brothers and sisters-in-arms would function down range.
“This is going to be a good experience, because coming from the support side of the Army, I’m now going to see what the CA and PSYOP sides do,” said Sgt. Kristen Bell, a communications specialist with HHC. “They are two completely different elements when it comes to the Army.”
Bell, who joined the Army in 2005 on active-duty status before she transitioned to the Army Reserve in 2014, said the integrated training was new to her since joining USACAPOC(A).
“I’m really excited to be doing this on a battle assembly weekend,” said the Muskogee, Oklahoma native. “As a command element most of the battle assemblies have been presentations, the gas chamber and ranges. This is something totally new and different. I’ve never done this type of training, even when I was active-duty.”
This training was mostly an opportunity for highly specialized support elements to be involved in the civil affairs and psychological operations training that happens in subordinate units.
“A lot of the times we do civil affairs training or PSYOP training, and we have a tendency to forget that we have low density MOS’s,” said Sgt. 1st Class Pedro Parrilla-Soto, an operations noncommissioned officer with USACAPOC(A). “We have to remember our ‘little brothers and sisters’ that are out here with us, and that without them we couldn’t make our MOS happen.”
The extra involvement for this training mission integrated finance Soldiers with civil affairs and PSYOP to maintain peaceful relations with other countries.
“If you don’t have your other [MOS’s] involved, your missions can’t go forward,” he said. “I want everyone to walk away learning what CA and PSYOP does and what finance does, and how they keep us out of jail.”
There is an added factor to this training, though. To keep training realistic, USACAPOC(A) called upon members from their personnel section to act as the simulated local village members. Dressed in local garments and by acting erratically, they were able to depict a stress-inducing scene for the Soldiers training.
Just moments before approaching the village, supply specialist Sgt. Stephanie Harget was thrown into a situation where keeping cool was the name of the game.
“This was my first experience with a non-combatant mission,” she said. “As soon as he threw the rock, I knew we weren’t supposed to go in ‘guns blazing’ so I tried to keep myself calm and keep from overreacting and scaring them.”
Her calm was noted and praised during the after action review. In fact, each member of this team received praise for not once raising their weapons to any of the villagers.
“Please somebody help! You killed my baby!” The two local women screamed in distress while the village elders discussed their issues with the U.S. Forces.
“You think you can give me money to replace a dead baby? You ran over my baby. How will you fix my dead baby?” These are just a few of the harsh words shouted in anger at the approaching Soldiers. This was just one of several challenges Harget faced.
Not merely berated by the village women, she was touched and harassed by a male member of the village pressing her to “get out of my village” and “leave now.”
“This training has helped me a lot, as far as handling different situations,” Harget said. “It showed me that everything isn’t kicking in doors and shooting guns, but sometimes it’s about working one-on-one with the people and gaining their trust.”
“The training was very realistic,” said Capt. Jose Rodriguez, a finance officer with USACAPOC(A). “It made us think more about how to proceed in the battlefield when you have an aggressive situation. I think the training event was very good and I am very proud of how we did.”
Overall, the training turned out to be a great way to get other military occupations involved in the CA and PSYOP training and expand their understanding of how to handle these situations.
| Date Taken: | 06.27.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 07.15.2015 11:38 |
| Story ID: | 170076 |
| Location: | FORT BRAGG, NC, US |
| Hometown: | MUSKOGEE, OK, US |
| Web Views: | 712 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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