Photo By Staff Sgt. Leon Cook | Soldiers from Company C (Long Range Surveillance), 3rd Squadron, 38th Cavalry Regiment...... read more read more
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YAKIMA TRAINING CENTER, Wash. – Soldiers are gathering around a corrugated metal building and loading rifle magazines with blank ammunition. Nearby, strips of engineer tape mark off imaginary rooms and buildings. The sound of distant machine gun fire reverberates through the rugged hills and ridges of central Washington.
The sights and sounds of Yakima Training Center often leave a lasting impression on those who train here. Most units on Joint Base Lewis-McChord have made the trip through the Snoqualmie Pass to the training center many times.
The 3rd Squadron, 38th Cavalry Regiment, however, is here for the first time.
The 3-38 CAV was just reactivated, Oct. 16. The soldiers of the squadron, many of them junior enlisted and at their first duty station, are beginning the long process of bringing themselves to full combat readiness.
“We’re building a house,” said Lt. Col Mark Aitken, the 3-38 squadron commander.
“We started with the foundation before we came out here, with all the pre-marksmanship training, we’ve really stepped it up, and we’re at the point now where we’re ready to move up to company and platoon level operations,” Aitken said.
Training at YTC began on an individual level. Soldiers conducted individual marksmanship training with their assigned weapons.
Once individual training was complete, the squadron shifted its training focus to crew-level and team-level training.
Soldiers from Company C (Long Range Surveillance) practiced room-clearing procedures in a shoothouse, Oct. 11. In this training, four-man teams learn to move, communicate, and engage targets effectively.
Room-clearing techniques are often introduced to soldiers using “glass houses.” In a glass house, engineer tape is used to mark off notional walls and doors. A glass house allows for soldiers to learn the basic techniques, step-by-step.
The use of a dedicated shoothouse facility, however, allows Soldiers to fill in the blanks. The walls and doors are only notional in a glass house, but a shoothouse has solid wooden doors and rubber walls. Instead of simply stating what they would do, soldiers actually perform the steps.
Room-clearing techniques are best learned through repetition. The soldiers of Company C practiced going through the facility multiple times.
First, they conducted one or more dry runs through the facility. In dry runs, soldiers practice technique only, without ammunition.
After proving their proficiency in dry runs, teams went through again, using blank ammunition to simulate real gunfire.
Finally, teams were allowed to go through the facility using live ammunition. The rubber walls allow soldiers to fire live rounds without fear of ricochets.
Despite the repetitive nature of the training, the soldiers remained enthusiastic.
“This is the kind of stuff I joined for,” said Spc. Lucas Nieddu, a native of Broomfield, Colo., now a scout-observer.
Nieddu believes that safety is the most important part of shoothouse training. The constant repetition of training allows soldiers to gain the muscle memory that prevents them from accidentally “flagging” their teammates. “Flagging” means a soldier is accidentally endangering their comrades by pointing a weapon at them.
The repetitions also allow different members in the team to learn each other’s jobs, Nieddu said.
The training conducted by Company C, and the 3-38 CAV as a whole, is instrumental in getting the squadron ready for combat.
| Date Taken: | 10.16.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 10.17.2011 16:15 |
| Story ID: | 78629 |
| Location: | SELAH, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 902 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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