Dragon Fires

Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Shane Hamann | Mississippi Army National Guard Soldiers with 2d Battalion, 114th Field Artillery Regiment, 155th armored Brigade Combat Team conduct platoon certification live fire June 8, 2016 during the Multi-echelon Brigade Training Exercise at Fort Hood, Texas June 8, 2016. The MiBT is a multicomponent training event that sustains readiness of the reserve and active components in accordance with the U.S. Army’s Total Force policy. (Mississippi National Guard photo by Staff. Sgt. Shane Hamann, 102d Public Affairs Detachment/Released)  

FORT HOOD, TX, UNITED STATES

06.08.2016

Story by Staff Sgt. Shane Hamann  

102d Public Affairs Detachment

FORT HOOD, Texas – Mississippi Army National Guard Soldiers with the 2d Battalion, 114th Field Artillery Regiment, 155th Armored Brigade Combat Team completed live fire platoon certifications during a Multi-echelon Brigade Training Exercise June 8, 2016 here.
The training conducted 3-24 June during the MiBT, a multicomponent event that sustains readiness, is helping to prepare the unit, nicknamed “Dragons,” for a rotation at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif. in the summer of 2017.
To be certified the unit must proficiently perform Mission Essential Tasks, determined by the Army and the battalion commander, while being timed. The tasks incorporate individuals, crews and sections up to the battalion as a whole.
“This is getting us ready for what they’re going to want to see at NTC and for a (possible) deployment,” said the Battery A commander, 1st Lt. Ian Scoubelos from Biloxi, Miss.
Conducting the MiBT at Fort Hood instead of their normal training area at Camp Shelby, Miss. gives the Soldiers an opportunity to practice more basic skills such as navigation and reconnaissance in preparation for NTC because they are not familiar with Fort Hood, said Staff Sgt. Josh Miller, a gun chief, in 1st Platoon, Battery A and a civilian police officer from Columbus, Miss.
“We normally do this at Shelby,” said Scroubelos. “This is getting us out of our comfort zone."
The unit also trains on their equipment every drill period they are at their home station readiness centers in Starkville, Columbus, Kosciusko, Ackerman and Winona, Miss. and for their state mission which include assisting with search and rescue operations during a natural man-made disaster.
The unit must remain proficient and meet Army standards by incorporating the training that active duty units do daily into a few action packed per month days at drill, said Scroubelos.
In the remaining weeks that the unit is scheduled to take part in the MiBT they will also be conducting force-on-force training with active duty units stationed at Fort Hood in order to enhance their capabilities and benefit from the lessons learned by those units at NTC in 2015.

• Date Taken: 06.08.2016
• Date Posted: 06.09.2016 11:32
• Story ID: 200457
• Location: FORT HOOD, TX, US
• Hometown: ACKERMAN, MS, US
• Hometown: BILOXI, MS, US
• Hometown: COLUMBUS, MS, US
• Hometown: LOUISVILLE, MS, US
• Hometown: STARKVILLE, MS, US