Photo By Spc. Rochelle Prince-Krueger | A Soldier with the 3rd Infantry Division participates in the Flag Football tournament...... read more read more
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FORT STEWART, Ga. -
For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear --
When you are the hammer, strike.
The above verse is a short poem, “Preparedness,” written by the late Edwin Markham, a renowned American Poet.
While Markham certainly didn’t have the 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team “Sledgehammers,” 3rd Infantry Division, in mind when he wrote it, it nonetheless seems as if it was the Brigade’s narrative during their recent performance throughout “Marne Week,” a week long organizational event held here on Fort Stewart, Nov. 16-19.
For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
Marne Week is an annual athletic and military competition for Soldiers across the 3rd ID and Fort Stewart, pitting the brigade and tenant-unit teams against each other in 16 events, ranging from Ultimate Frisbee and Golf to CrossFit, Combatives and a Mental Agility Shoot. The competition this year was stiff, and each unit had their eye on the coveted Marne Cup.
However, Marne Week was not just an event where a unit could slap a team together and hope to win. It took time and preparation, something the Sledgehammers understood. So they began an intensive training and practice program a month before the competition, explained Col. Michael Simmering, commander of the 3rd IBCT Sledgehammers.
“We understood what we were going to have to do when we came down here, and quite honestly, we were prepared to take it to the rest of the Division,” said Simmering.
When you are the anvil, bear--
The Sledgehammers hit hard, but they too have had to bear the strikes just as an anvil does.
They are stationed at Fort Benning, which is more than 250 miles away from Fort Stewart. This means that they had the difficulty of competing in unfamiliar territory, when all of their opponents had the “home-team advantage.”
“So we had to do all the preparation at Fort Benning, and then travel four and a half hours down here, figure out where everything was at Fort Stewart, and then get our Soldiers to the events, and oh by the way -- we had to win,” summed up Simmering.
Not only did they have to deal with this disadvantage, but in a general sense, the Sledgehammers have been dealing with a lot in the last year, as they have bore the burden of the downsizing that the Army has been going through.
Earlier this year they transformed from an armored, heavy mechanized brigade, to a light infantry brigade. To do this they had to divest themselves of a lot of equipment. When they lost their mechanized equipment, they saw many of their personnel go elsewhere within the Army; Soldiers with their specialties tied to armored equipment for the most part were no longer needed within the brigade.
Shortly after that, it was decided that personnel had to be decreased even more, and so the brigade has received the orders to deactivate.
“We’ll have four battalions inactivate next month, we’ll loose an additional battalion in January, and then the brigade Headquarters will inactivate in April,” Simmering said.
The success of the Sledgehammers has been hard won in the face of inactivation.
When you are the hammer, strike.
Strike, and strike hard they did.
Nowhere else was this seemingly more apparent than in one of the new events introduced this year, the SFC Thornsbury Challenge.
The SFC Thornsbury Challenge was a four-event physical challenge that was designed to measure the combat readiness of the participants. The challenge was developed and managed by the Special Operations Recruiting Battalion’s center, located here on Fort Stewart. The challenge was named after Sgt. 1st Class Duane Thornsbury, 30, of Bridgeport, W.Va., a Green Beret, who died Sept. 12, 2009, in Iraq of injuries suffered in a vehicle rollover.
To complete the SFC Tornsbury Challenge, a four-person team had to complete the post obstacle course, complete a six mile forced march with a 50 pound ruck sack, complete the post Leadership Reaction Course, and then finish with a four mile run, all in as little time as possible.
The Sledgehammers’ team beat the second place team by an unimaginably wide margin.
“They beat the next fastest team by seven minutes…it was amazing what they did together,” explained Simmering. “I knew they were in-shape guys, I don’t think I realized they were that in shape.”
While this performance was one effective display of the Sledgehammers striking hard, the Sledgehammers’ powerful strike was also displayed in the overall end results of Marne Week.
As previously mentioned, there were 16 events. Each event awarded points to first, second and third place winners.
Marne Week in turn also had a first, second and third place winner. Overall, the Sledgehammers earned 66 points, both the second third place winners were in the low 40s.
The Sledgehammers struck hard indeed.
“The bottom line is that these Soldiers functioned together as a team, and they brought home the trophy,” said Simmering.
It seems they did what the Sledgehammers have been known so often to do--
For all your days prepare,
And meet them ever alike:
When you are the anvil, bear--
When you are the SLEDGEHAMMERS, strike.
| Date Taken: | 11.23.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 11.23.2015 10:55 |
| Story ID: | 182609 |
| Location: | FORT STEWART, GA, US |
| Web Views: | 316 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, Sledgehammers strike, by SSG Richard Wrigley, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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