Photo By Lt. Col. Keith Hickox | CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – Chief Warrant Officer 5 Darren Dreher (center), an aviation...... read more read more
Subscribe
By Sgt. 1st Class Doug Roles
28th Infantry Division, Task Force Spartan Public Affairs
CAMP ARIFJAN, Kuwait – Warrant officers with Headquarters and Headquarters Battalion are working to add to their ranks throughout the 28th Infantry Division, Pa. Army National Guard, even while deployed to Kuwait. Warrants in multiple HHBN sections supported a recruitment meeting held in a Camp Arifjan chapel July 30 and are now following up with enlisted soldiers who expressed interest in the program.
HHBN is currently deployed to Kuwait as the division headquarters element for Task Force Spartan. Chief Warrant Officer 5 Darren Dreher, an aviation officer who works in the TFS G32 aviation cell, coordinated the recruiting event with support from the Pa. Guard’s warrant officer recruiting office at Fort Indiantown Gap.
“It’s a self-identified need. We have nearly 100 warrant officer vacancies across the state,” Dreher, a Schuylkill Haven resident, said. “I had this idea about soliciting a captive audience while on deployment. So, we took the opportunity, hoping to fill a hole in division from within our own ranks.”
“With some people not knowing what they are going to do after this deployment - with their careers - this was a good learning opportunity,” he said.
Nearly 20 enlisted soldiers were able to attend the informational meeting. And Dreher says nearly 40 HHBN soldiers have a serious interest in the warrant officer candidate program.
Warrant officers are highly specialized in a variety of career fields. They are trainers and advisors and manage, maintain and operate equipment and systems across a full range of Army operations. Warrant officers remain single-specialty officers with career tracks that progress within their field. They account for less than three percent of total Army strength.
“We are subject matter experts. As a warrant officer, you’re a specialized asset in a career field,” he said. “We’re the constant. We make up the technical foundation.”
Dreher said that the Army, like every service, sees attrition due to competition with the civilian sector. Retirements also thin the warrant officer ranks.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Charles Lafferty, a Douglassville, Pa. resident, serves as a property book officer for HHBN. He was promoted to his current rank July 12.
Lafferty enlisted in the active Army when he was 19, as a cavalry scout. After four years, he joined the Pa. Army National Guard in a supply position, with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 1st Battalion, 111th Infantry Regiment. As a sergeant first class he was working as a battalion supply sergeant but faced with limited enlisted openings within his MOS (military occupational specialty) to be promoted to master sergeant.
“I got a call from a senior warrant who recognized some potential in me,” Lafferty recalls. “So, I pursued it. I wish I would have gone warrant much earlier in my career.”
He says he was fortunate that there was a warrant officer vacancy in the unit for him to move into immediately upon his appointment. As a noncommissioned officer, Lafferty managed supply sergeants. Now he manages property books, ensuring units have the equipment the Army says they should have. Lafferty said something all warrant officers have in common is the technical nature of the work they do.
For those thinking of pursuing the warrant path, Lafferty advises exploring options and giving some thought to the type of work a new position would entail.
“First, you have to like the Army. If you don’t enjoy your work it’s just not going to be a good fit,” Lafferty said. “You have to be a detail-oriented, methodical person.”
Warrant officers work in aviation, chemical weapons protection, food services, human resources, network management, intelligence analysis and other technical areas. Interested applicants must meet a number of minimum requirements to apply for warrant officer candidate (WOC) school, which is generally held at Fort Rucker, Ala. The school is designed to assess a candidate’s potential for appointment as a warrant officer and prepares them for service in 16 of the Army’s 17 branches (the Special Operations branch trains and appoints its own warrant officers).
After a candidate completes WOC school, he or she is appointed as a warrant officer and then sent to a specific branch course to receive more focused technical training.
Soldiers who attended this recruiting event and want to pursue becoming a warrant officer are being matched up with HHBN warrant officers in the same or similar MOSs to learn more. The next step for them is to begin putting together WOC school application packets, something they can begin while still deployed.
| Date Taken: | 07.31.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 08.06.2018 08:22 |
| Story ID: | 287401 |
| Location: | KW |
| Web Views: | 311 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, 28th Infantry Division’s warrant officers in Kuwait recruit soldiers to fill their ranks, by MSG Douglas Roles, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
