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As you drive onto Fort Meade, you know you have entered a part of history. The old stone buildings stand strong from an age of engineering where things were simple and made to last.
Mixed with these historic buildings are more modern buildings made of wood, brick and steel. You drive down streets like Custer Avenue and Reno Road passed repurposed stables and a hall once used for indoor horse training.
Inside this historic architecture lies the lineage of a unit and institution.
The 196th Regiment, Regional Training Institute, one of four major commands in the South Dakota Army National Guard, has been training Soldiers since 1957 and celebrated its 60th anniversary during a dining-in at Riding Hall on Fort Meade, Nov. 4.
The 196th started out as the South Dakota Military Academy in Mitchell and was tasked with establishing the SDNG Officer Candidate School. There were 33 candidates in attendance at the first drill on Nov. 2-3, 1957. The next summer, 19 candidates from Class 1 graduated after completing annual training at Camp Rapid.
Attrition was the norm for many years of training Soldiers to become second lieutenants during OCS.
“It used to be kind of a rite of passage,” said Col. Timothy Moran, director of logistics for the SDNG. “You had to survive and get through the TACs (teach, assess and counsel officers).”
Moran started as a TAC officer in 1987 with Class 33 and eventually served as the OCS company commander. TACs were similar to drill sergeants in their approach to military bearing, discipline and attention to detail. The TAC officers are now called platoon trainers.
“We believed in leading by example,” said retired Lt. Col. Tim Goodwin, a graduate of Class 22 in 1977. “In the field, we carried what they carried plus some of their stuff.”
Goodwin became a TAC officer shortly after graduating from OCS. He left the Officer Candidate School after 13 years of training future officers. In 1986, the SDMA moved to Fort Meade and in 1996 it became the Regional Training Institute.
“The training became more tactical with the move to Fort Meade,” said Goodwin.
Since its inception, the 196th has continued to grow and evolve. One of the biggest changes in the OCS program and at the RTI has been the training culture.
“There was nothing wrong with the way we used to do things,” said Moran. “We just made it better.”
The platoon trainers have taken on a larger responsibility in the training with the emphasis changing from a right-of-passage to mentorship and development.
“Developing an officer is really more of a challenge than breaking one down,” said Moran. “You send us that kid and we are going to develop that person the best we can into a platoon leader.”
Academics and leadership are now the priorities.
“The mental and physical stress hasn’t changed,” said Moran. “Training is just much more developmental.”
Gone are the days of log chain training aides for corrective action.
“You can apply the same amount of stress with deadlines and administrative actions,” said Moran.
The 196th has not just changed its training culture but it has changed structurally as well. It now consists of two battalions.
1st Battalion is located at Fort Meade and conducts OCS and the Warrant Officer Candidate School program. 2nd Battalion is located in Sioux Falls and provides several functional and developmental courses including instruction for military specialty schools and noncommissioned officer courses.
“A lot of times people relate the RTI to OCS because the OCS program has a lot of visibility to the nation,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Dan Konechne, 196th senior NCO. “But the courses offered at 2nd Battalion are very valuable to the SDNG as well.”
The 196th will likely continue to grow and evolve in the future as it has in the past, but one thing that has remained consistent over the last 60 years is the brotherhood and relationships that have formed under its training.
“Those relationships, those bonds, they last for years,” said Konechne.
Like the stone and the brick of historic Fort Meade.
| Date Taken: | 11.07.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 12.03.2017 09:42 |
| Story ID: | 257211 |
| Location: | STURGIS, SD, US |
| Web Views: | 102 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, SD Guard’s 196th Regiment celebrates 60 years of history, by SSG Lucas Bollock, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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