2nd CAB Soldiers qualify on M249

Photo By Pfc. Chung Il Kim | Pvt. Isaiah Hicks, a UH-60 Black Hawk crew chief from the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment, 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade, talks about the M249 Squad Automatic Weapon range on Aug. 19 at the Warrior Range on the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in South Korea. Hicks completed table two of the weapon qualification.  

PYEONGTAEK, 41, SOUTH KOREA

08.20.2015

Story by Sgt. Jesse Smith 

2nd Combat Aviation Brigade

CAMP CASEY, South Korea — The sky was covered with clouds, but the heat penetrated to the surface. Once the dust had settled and all the rounds had been fired, the Soldiers stood up and looked down range as they wondered how they performed. As they walked off of the firing line, their faces were filled with eagerness. The eagerness to find out how many targets they had taken down.

Soldiers from the 2nd Battalion, 2nd Aviation Regiment, 2nd Combat Aviation Brigade completed an M249 Squad Automatic Weapon qualification Aug. 19 at the Warrior Range on the Rodriguez Live Fire Complex in South Korea. Table one was completed with paper targets on Aug. 18 and table two was completed with pop-up targets on Aug. 19.

Pvt. Isaiah Hicks, a UH-60 Black Hawk crew chief from the Company A, 2-2nd Aviation Regiment, was one the Soldiers who qualified on the M249.

“It was great to get out there and fire,” Hicks said. “I haven’t fired the M249 since basic training, so it was fun to able to come out here and qualify.”

The M249 is used for enemy suppression. He said it a weapon used to cover your battle buddy’s backs and to get your teammates to safety. Even if the enemy is far away, the weapon's high rate of fire will keep them down.

Hicks explained that the range they used for the table two of the qualification was a different kind of range then he is used to.

"It was perfect to simulate a hostile enemy environment,” Hicks said. “You just have to have a little imagination and you can picture this range being in the middle of a battlefield.”

The Warrior Range was actually not your typical M249 range. First Lt. Kathryne Bauchspies, the executive officer for the Company D, 2-2nd Aviation Regiment, was the officer in charge of the range and had to make adjustments when she found out the range they wanted to use for the M249 was no longer available.

“We had to having an hourlong meeting this morning with range control to figure out what they had to do to use this range,” Bauchspies said. “They actually had to go into their system and change the programming for the pop-up targets.”

The Warrior Range is really used for a different purpose, but it was the only available range, so Bauchspies adjusted fire and made the best of a bad situation.

“The range is going smoothly,” Bauchspies said. “The Soldiers are having a good time and everyone is being safe.”

Regardless of the range, the standard for safety and training always remains the most important mission.

The range may not have started the way they wanted it to, but in the end the 2-2nd Aviation Regiment Soldiers had increased mission readiness, better Soldier skills and knew how to work as a team.

• Date Taken: 08.20.2015
• Date Posted: 08.19.2015 20:11
• Story ID: 173662
• Location: PYEONGTAEK, 41, KR