Photo By Abigail Meyer | Spc. Travis Pacheco, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat...... read more read more
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ORO GRANDE RANGE, N.M. – Spc. Travis Pacheco loves his job. He’s been in the Army since 2011 and said the reason is simple.
“In all honesty, it’s pretty much on the caveman side of everything, big boom makes me happy,” said Pacheco, a 13B, cannon crewmember.
As an artilleryman, he really only gets the chance to do his job in while out in the field.
“My favorite part of my job is coming to the field and shooting rounds. I don’t enjoy anything more than putting rounds downrange,” Pacheco said.
His most recent field exercise was the joint training exercise Hustler Trough III from May 23 through 25. His unit, Conqueror Battery, 2nd Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, brought three M777A2 howitzers to train with Air Force elements.
“We’re training on joint fires capabilities and operations, working with the Air Force and the A-10s,” Pacheco said. “Also, it prepares us for deployment to a combat area, because this is how we work in combat, we work with Air Force, we work with Navy, firing in conjunction with them.”
Pacheco is the number two man on the crew, one of his jobs is to load the charges that will propel the 155mm rounds toward the target. His commander, Capt. Nathan Horswill, said exercises such as these help his troops master being able to do all their warrior tasks and drills to standard.
“All the section chiefs and platoon leaders and platoon sergeants – they’re already qualified to do their job, this is just kind of exercising it at the run speed,” Horswill said.
During Hustler Trough, the unit was firing at the direction of the forward air controllers airborne, pilots flying A-10 Thunderbolt IIs assigned to the 66th Weapons Squadron of the Air Force Weapons School, Nellis Air Force Base, Nevada. Horswill said it is a rare opportunity to work so closely with the Air Force.
“I think one of the big things for a young Soldier is context. So being able to see the pilots is a little more personal for the guys who are calling for fire from our guns,” Horswill said. “That’s pretty rare, the Air Force has a lot of their own training requirements, we have a lot of our own training requirements, so getting joint exposure is really rare at the battery level.”
The three-day exercise was more field time for Soldiers who love it, like Pacheco, who said they’re just doing their jobs. He plans to re-enlist when the unit returns home from the field.
“We come out here and we work ourselves to the bone from sun up to sun down and we do it all to make ourselves better and work better as a unit,” Pacheco said. “It’s doing our job.”
| Date Taken: | 05.24.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 06.01.2016 11:48 |
| Story ID: | 199655 |
| Location: | EL PASO, TEXAS, US |
| Hometown: | PHOENIX, ARIZONA, US |
| Web Views: | 108 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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