Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Jacob Kohrs | A soldier of 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery, 17th Field Artillery Brigade, is...... read more read more
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Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Wash.-The Thunderbolt soldier looks nervously over the 40-foot drop and yells, “lane five on rappel!” what feels like an eternity passes and finally he hears his battle’s response, “belay on lane five.” Now it is time to ride the rope!
On Jan. 24, the soldiers of 5th Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery, 17th Field Artillery Brigade performed a physically and mentally challenging, combat focused, team building event known in the brigade’s footprint as ‘Gunga Din.’
“Gunga Din is a crucible event to get after some of the basic warrior tasks and drills, and major requirements within I Corps’ America’s Big 6,” said 1st Sgt. Nicholas Klein, 1st sgt. of Bravo Battery, 5-3 FA. “Yet, it is also helping build comraderies within the battalion and batteries.”
The all-day event consisted of ten challenges: night marksmanship, tactical combat casualty care, patrol base operations, crew-serve weapons familiarization, rappel tower, soldier readiness training, squad-on-squad operations, combat obstacle course, and a ruck march between each challenge.
“I have really enjoyed the getting out of the office and building better comradery with not just the seniors but the junior soldiers in each of the other shops,” said Sgt. 1st Class Daysi Fields, Non-Commissioned Officer in Charge of the 5-3 FA personnel shop. “When we are in the office, we don’t always get to know especially the junior soldiers that are in the other shops, this gives us the opportunity to work with those soldiers as a team to accomplish the mission.”
She went on to say that, at a battalion level it is not always easy to get out and work on the basic soldiering skills that our soldiers need to know, and how to perform. Conducting events like this, allows for that time to get her soldiers proficient in the skills that they will have to do when they are deployed, such as the squad operations where they will have to react to enemy engagements.
The event was to cover I Corps’ America’s Big 6, which are physical readiness training, marksmanship, warrior tasks and battle drills, medical training, sustainment and mission command and communications. Each of the challenges hit points in each of these categories.
“Overall, for my battery it went well,” said Klein, “and it was a major gut check to our soldiers to gage [internally and externally] their physical and mental resilience.”
In the end it was a long day for 5-3 FA but everyone completed the mission.
| Date Taken: | 01.24.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 01.29.2019 13:14 |
| Story ID: | 308631 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WA, US |
| Web Views: | 218 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, You're a better man than I, First Round, by SFC Jacob Kohrs, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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