Photo By Senior Master Sgt. Eugene Crist | Airmen from the 130th Civil Engineer Squadron Charleston, W.Va., guide concrete being...... read more read more
Subscribe
RAYMOND, Maine - U.S. Air Force airmen from the 130th Civil Engineer Squadron, Charleston, West Virginia, completed the last of the Innovative Readiness Training (IRT) construction projects taking place at Camp William Hinds Boy Scout Camp for the 2015 project year.
Airmen from the 130th Civil Engineer Squadron, West Virginia Air National Guard, are the last of the nine joint service rotations to complete the two-week Deployment For Training (DFT) this year at Camp Hinds. The construction projects are part of a Civil-Military Program created in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Reserve Affairs that provide Air Guardsmen, Navy and Marine Reservists an opportunity to hone their wartime skills while providing a service to the local community.
"This year, we were able to accomplish nine large projects with the main efforts being the completion of the dining facility foundation and a few city of Raymond projects," said Master Sgt. Mike Schenck, a Marine Reservist and the assistant officer in charge of the Camp Hinds project. "The IRT allows us to conduct real-world training cheaper than we ordinarily could thanks to the customers providing the supplies."
The IRT Project at Camp Hinds, now in its second year, has provided the camp with new facilities and renovations to aging ones that would normally be too expensive for the Boy Scouts of Americas Pine Tree Council, which serves 75 percent of Maine residents.
"We explored how much it would cost us to improve the camp and found it was not feasible for us to upgrade without the IRT program,"said Eric Tarbox, Scout executive for the Pine Tree Council. "The completion of the foundation for the 10,000 square foot state-of-the-art dining facility this week is the cornerstone, quite literally, for our flagship property to be able to provide our core product which is kids, outdoors and scouting. Our donors, who are providing materials and dollars to the project, know that their gift has much more meaning than giving to scouting, they know that by giving to this project they are directly helping our servicemen and women receive the best possible experience that they can thanks to the IRT."
One of the benefits to the Guardsmen and Reservist involved in the IRT program is the availability to train outside their standard military job. IRT provides them experience beyond their rank and job specialty which is not available at other military Deployments For Training (DFT).
"This would be my third DFT in my six years with the 130th and I would say this one has been my favorite due to the amount of work I've been allowed to do with different shops and teachers who are more interested in showing you how to do a task and not tell you how it's done, you learn a lot," said Senior Airman Randy Downs, a water and fuels maintenance apprentice. "Typically, I just work on plumbing on a DFT, but here at Camp Hinds I've been able to participate in a large scale concrete pour, shingle a roof and build a room off a structure. It's really taken me outside my plumbing career field and put me in situations where I didn't know what I was doing and taught me skills for down the road."
There are seven more large projects planned for Camp Hinds over the next three years with the main goal of the 2016 project year being the completion of the dining facility.
| Date Taken: | 08.28.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 08.28.2015 14:02 |
| Story ID: | 174522 |
| Location: | RAYMOND, ME, US |
| Web Views: | 463 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Camp Hinds IRT a value to Maine, the National Guard and Reserve, by SMSgt Eugene Crist, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT