Photo By Sgt. 1st Class James McGuire | Wyoming Army National Guard pilot Chief Warrant Officer 2 Paul Buettner rallies his...... read more read more
Wyoming Army National Guard aviators, from the state’s most deployed unit, have always mobilized with the nickname Cowboy Dustoff, but those days have come to a temporary end following a patch ceremony at Fort Bliss, Texas, where the soldiers gave up their horse and rider patch for a 1st Armored Division patch.
Along with Army National Guard aviators from Mississippi, New York and New Jersey, the Wyoming guardsmen from G Company, 2nd Battalion, 211th Aviation will spend the next 10 months, or so, as members of Task Force Iron Dragons, the Iron Eagle Brigade, 1st Armored Division, with the new nickname, Dragon Dustoff.
It was the second name change for the Wyoming guardsmen since arriving at Fort Bliss for pre-mobilization training a couple of weeks ago. They fell under the New York command initially, and for a short time were members of Charlie Company, 1-171st Aviation Regiment.
Change has been the name of the game in the Lone Star State, and while training hard to expand their skills for the deployment, it’s been different working within new crews.
Staff Sgt. Daniel Zabriskie, a flight operations noncommissioned officer, said he’s impressed with how the four states are coming together.
“Everything is by regulation, but everyone has their own twists,” Zabriskie explained. “It’s really cool seeing everyone working together on phraseology and creating a standard.”
“There is some difference in how guys talk in the back of the aircraft,” said Sgt. Gabriel Rivera, a flight instructor. “The accents are really different. We’ve got one guy from Mississippi and one guy from New Jersey, so it will take a little time and training together.”
After training so long together, there has been a little grumbling among the Cowboy State crew about breaking up into six platoons.
Sgt. 1st Class Andy Monnin and 1st Lt. Logan Koerwitz have been G Co.’s platoon leaders for quite some time.
“One thing I’ll miss is knowing the people and their individual strengths. They are all really good at particular things and so if you have a situation that calls for that person’s talent, you know who to get,” Monnin said, before addressing the loss of his platoon leader, Koerwitz. “We were like father and son before we came down here,” “Now I’ve lost my daddy.”
Koerwitz, who hasn’t seen much of Monnin since arriving in Texas, laughed when he heard the statement from his longtime platoon sergeant.
“Well, he’s older than me, so I don’t know about being his daddy, but we had a really good team and I hoped we’d be able to stay together,” he said through a chuckle. “We knew it was going to happen and we’ve talked about the switch for a year. We brought 29 studs down here, and it’s not easy to let them go, and say ‘See you in nine months.’ I know they will all do really well with their new platoons, but I can’t say it doesn’t suck.”
Koerwitz is one of the few Wyoming pilots who hasn’t gotten in the air since arriving at Fort Bliss, but he is staying very busy as his role has become more administrative in the new unit.
“I’m in charge of building all the flight schedules for the whole company,” he said. “I’ve got to match up the people who may not have as much flight-hours-training in some areas as those who do, and trying to learn who needs hoist training or dust landing training and getting them up to speed before our culminating event here. There is a lot to learn. We’ve got active duty regulations and local regs and SOPs we have to know. It’s a lot to digest. If this is all we had to do while we were here, that would be enough, but add to that the integration, and it’s a lot to handle. But, it’s better to do it here, than learning this stuff in Afghanistan.”
One of the pilots who has been flying, usually twice a day for day training and night flights, is Chief Warrant Officer 2 Paul Buettner.
“The flying here is fantastic,” he said. “It’s a very large training area with all kinds of terrain and deep dust. It’s very challenging.”
“It is a lot dustier than Wyoming, but that’s probably why they send us here,” said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Michael Parkins, who is on his first deployment. “It’s been a little slow getting used to all the active duty regulations and working with the other states, but it’s coming together.”
Sgt. Andrea Geringer is in charge of a maintenance platoon, and is very proud of the job her soldiers are doing and have done prior to arriving in Texas. No one wants to brag too loudly, but the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters that have needed repairs, aren’t ones with the Wyoming flag on the tail.
“They have been doing a great job, and working well with the other states,” Geringer said.
One of her mechanics, Spc. Nicholas Maas, while performing maintenance on one of the New Jersey Black Hawks, succinctly wrapped up the team’s mission when he said, “even pilots need heroes.”
Task force commander Lt. Col. Dan Artino, from 1st Armored Division, addressed the 250 Army aviators assembled in a maintenance hangar for the patch ceremony. He paraphrased NBA Hall-of-Famer Michael Jordan, saying, “Talent wins games, but teamwork wins championships.”
“You are joining a task force of talent hailing from all 50 states and four territories,” the commander said. “The soldiers to your left and your right represent the very best this nation has to offer. And while our diversity is our strength, there is common thread between each of us. Look to your left and right. These are your brothers and sisters—your family for the next 10 months. Take care of each other and protect the team.”
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| Date Taken: | 01.23.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 01.23.2019 10:41 |
| Story ID: | 307908 |
| Location: | WY, US |
| Web Views: | 352 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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