Packhorse Soldiers Participate in Airload Training

FORT CARSON, CO, UNITED STATES

10.02.2019

Story by Staff Sgt. Scott Evans 

4th Infantry Division Public Affairs Office

FORT CARSON, Colo. – A military unit’s ability to deploy rapidly displays that it has long prepared for being ready to deploy when called upon. On Sept. 16, Packhorse Soldiers of 4th Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, in collaboration with units from the U.S. Air Force conducted airload training at the Fort Carson Arrival/Departure Airfield Control Group at Colorado Springs, Colorado.
Three companies from 4BSB prepared four different types of military vehicles to be loaded on to a C-5 aircraft with the assist of 21st Logistics Readiness Squadron of Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado and 9th Airlift Squadron, 436th Operations Group of Dover Air Force Base, Delaware.
“This is the fifth company to participate in static loading,” said Lt. Col. Bryan Huffman, the 4th Infantry Div. air mobility liaison officer (AMLO). “We’ve done C-17s, C-5s, also C-130s, and the C-130s were actually able to load, fly away and then land at the Red Devil field landing strip at Fort Carson.”
The Soldiers involved began learning the steps well in advance of the execution phase.
“What we do as far as part of training is a week or so prior, we meet at the company level and conduct a PowerPoint presentation that walks through each of the processes from what we do at the motorpool all the way to loading the cargo on to the aircraft,” Huffman explained. “Then we actually go out and do hands-on to go through the steps with the Joint Inspection team in order to have them prepped for when they arrive.”
The exercise validated prior training conducted by 4BSB.
“We have a handful of personnel that have that have done airload training and building that plan before in other units, but for the most part this is relatively new training for a lot of the Soldiers who are out here,” said Capt. Joshua Stephens, the 4BSB, 1SBCT, 4th Inf. Div. future operations officer. “So they get some good experience, good training for when we actually have to do follow-on training and getting ready to send equipment off to wherever whenever we get called up.”
The training event also proved to be beneficial for the two Air Force units as well.
“”This crew is tasked with a global mission, it’s a strategic asset,” Huffman said. “Sometimes they don’t get good training like this. They’re just moving pallets or something else that doesn’t really flex their muscles like tying down vehicles that are different, so that’s why we try to find diverse, large vehicles like this with four-axles, three-axles, two axles that each have different requirements.”
The battalion is hopeful to make this event a more regular part of their battle rhythm.
“I would like to it get it to that point, but it’s all relative to whether there is aircraft available to actually load the equipment on to a plane,” Stephens said. “We did it a couple of months back, where we didn’t have aircraft, but we went through the process of getting the paperwork ready and the inspections.
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• Date Taken: 10.02.2019
• Date Posted: 10.02.2019 15:14
• Story ID: 345370
• Location: FORT CARSON, CO, US