Bastogne Officers Up Their Mental Resiliency

Photo By Sgt. Richard Daniels Jr. | Capt. James Hayes, from the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, explains to his fellow leadership the routes their Civil War predecessors took and the personal courage it took to carry out each task. Bastogne's leadership took a trip to both the Marriott Hotel and the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga. to improve upon their mental resiliency, March 2 – 4, before their deployment to Afghanistan.  

FORT OGLETHORPE, GA, UNITED STATES

03.10.2010

Story by Spc. Richard Daniels Jr. 

1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (AA) Public Affairs

FORT OGLETHORPE, Ga. - War has taken a heavy toll on many Soldiers. Many bare the battle scars of their experiences while others bare the brunt of mental hardships as their experiences take hold of their mind.

Due to the hardships of war, the 1st Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division commander, Col. Andrew Poppas, first trained his officers to become physically tough and has now moved toward their mental resiliency at a seminar held, March 2 — 4, at both the Marriott Hotel and the Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park in Fort Oglethorpe, Ga.

Part of this training revolved around learning from America's past, the time of Civil War.

"The first day of training was all about tactics and war, and it gives the commander and his subordinate commanders an opportunity to talk about how war hasn't changed and how it has changed and how to win wars tactically," said Capt. Adam Karr, brigade engineer staff officer. "Then you combine that with the second day where yes you can win the war tactically but what are you doing to keep your Soldiers prepared mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually in order to keep Soldiers in the fight."

The Bastogne officers presented one another with civil war history explaining the army values displayed at each battle site. The next two days incorporated seminars at the Marriott Hotel featuring various speakers.

"We had an eight hour conference with all the commanders in the hotel conference room," said Karr. "We had a series of speakers that were experts on the Soldier issues: mental resiliency, mental preparation for war, and then dealing with the stress of war both during combat and after combat," he said.

A group from the Army Center of Enhance Performance based out of the United States Military Academy at WestPoint, Soldiers returning from a tour in Afghanistan and a veteran who leads Operation Restoring Warrior each spoke to the Bastogne Warriors about dealing with the mental hardships of war.

"The ORW works with Soldiers that have post traumatic stress syndrome or difficulty getting over certain aspects of deployment and helps them find a spiritual and or emotional rock to continue their normal lives after these types of experiences," said Karr.

On the third day, Bastogne officers held a conference explaining how to stay emotionally calm in stressful situations and tools that can be used to help accomplish this.

"This is the second event we looked at building the team, the comradery, and letting the officers within the BCT get to know each other better," said Poppas, brigade commander. "With that, back in May we did a physically demanding Mongudai up in the mountains at the Tennessee Mountain Divide at the mountain ranger camp and we ended that with a historic run where the 506th and the 101st really had its birth. At the top we had a discussion really to look at where we started, the strength of our predecessors and where they drew that from and to look back and use that internally," he said. "That was one of the more physically demanding challenges. This one we are looking at more of the mental resiliency," said Poppas.

As Bastogne nears its deployment to Afghanistan, the Soldiers understand that a mentally and physically tough leader will help create a new chapter in Afghan history.

"We look to maintain the individual leader throughout the fight because there are many challenges that we place on his back."

• Date Taken: 03.10.2010
• Date Posted: 03.10.2010 07:33
• Story ID: 46433
• Location: FORT OGLETHORPE, GA, US