Courtesy Photo | U.S. Army soldiers with the 902nd Engineer Construction Company, prepare for a dive...... read more read more
TALLINN, Estonia – Too often the picture we paint of soldiers amounts to nothing more than an aggregation of their physical fitness score, weapon qualification score, and motivation. These are all things the Army pays us for, but the ideal soldier also reaches beyond, embodying the Army Values and consistently striving for improvement.
The Army incentivizes self-development, but the onus to take advantage of these prospects remains with the individual. It is our duty to seek these types of opportunities to become better soldiers and better leaders.
Members of the 15th Engineer Battalion take this duty seriously. Due to live fires during the Saber Strike 16 exercise, the 902nd Engineer Construction Company was unable to continue work for three days, granting soldiers some much needed down time. While the majority of the company enjoyed a relaxing break, three engineers and two culinary specialists coordinated a SCUBA certification class for themselves. In just three days, the five soldiers completed three phases of training: classroom, pool, and open water.
Pvt. Park recalls, “I thought it would be a great chance to get away and do something fun that most people never get a chance to do. I never thought that I would learn so much.”
The class, normally taught over four days, afforded the soldiers a chance to push their limits in various ways.
“At first, I couldn’t get it out of my head to breath once my nose was underwater,” said Spc. Rosario, “I thought I would never make it through the class, but now I can’t wait for my next chance to dive.”
Rosario’s ability to overcome mental rigidity is just one of the many benefits of the experience. SCUBA also taught the soldiers physics, biology, communication, trust, loyalty, confidence, personal courage, leadership and even “land” navigation.
The certification began with classroom instruction. Soldiers learned about water pressure, buoyancy, currents, the effects of nitrogen levels on the body and methods to prevent and treat rapid decompression.
Most people view the course as a purely recreational endeavor, not giving much thought to the knowledge it teaches.
“[But] did you know that the certification is worth college credit?” Sgt. Lach asked me after attending his first day of the course. It turns out SCUBA is worth two credit hours. Check continued education off the list.
Once they left the classroom, it was time for them to learn practical skills in the pool.
“The hand and arm signals we developed on the surface were crucial to the successful completion of each task,” Spc. Constantinacos realized as he entered the ‘demonstration of skills’ phase. “Up here we can discuss instructions when something is misunderstood or when there is a problem, but down there we had to pay close attention to our battle buddies and our surroundings as we moved through the various tasks.”
Prior to entering open water, the soldiers created a dive plan with their buddy. No one ever dives alone, and plans are adapted to fit within the limits of both divers because once at depth you need to be able to trust each other to get you out if trouble arises. Consequently, each soldier had to be confident in themselves before entering the water.
To hone those skills, the instructor required soldiers to practice emergency breathing, rapid assents, buddy tows and gear recovery. Then he sent them off with a compass to find a few points underwater. The low visibility of the quarry provided a unique opportunity to practice dead reckoning.
“Using the compass was really cool because underwater it is a lot harder to stay on a straight path,” said Park, “but usually we got close enough to our objective to terrain associate based on the brief.”
What he refers to is an intelligence brief of sorts that the dive master gave upon arrival to the site. The dive master stayed on the boat to keep accountability of the divers and help anyone who strayed too far, but before entry he discussed safety, their dive limits and the basic layout of soldiers would see upon entry. From there, soldiers were free to develop and execute their dive plans.
Little did they know, the captain anchored the boat on the opposite side of the camp from what had been briefed. Plan, meet first adversity. Thanks to their training – both military and SCUBA – these total soldiers demonstrated competence and resilience, moving to the first building to shoot an azimuth to the next one, and adapted their dive plans without resurfacing.
As a leader, seeing soldiers develop in front of your eyes is the most rewarding part of the job, and in just three days these soldiers overcame fears, refined basic soldiering skills, practiced leadership among their peers and demonstrated their commitment to a lifetime of fitness. Most importantly, they realized just how prepared they are to excel in austere environments.
They make us “Reliable Engineers!”
| Date Taken: | 07.01.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 07.15.2016 01:47 |
| Story ID: | 204028 |
| Location: | NOVO SELO, BG |
| Web Views: | 153 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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