Photo By Al Betancourt | DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek follows a JRTRX as it maneuvers an...... read more read more
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FORT EUSTIS, Va. — “Rollover, rollover, rollover!” yelled Navy Petty Officer 3rd Class Dwayne Campbell as the Humvee he was in flipped, leaving him upside down and scrambling to find a door handle to safely exit the vehicle.
Campbell, a logistician assigned to Naval Air Station Key West, Fla., and more than 180 members of the Defense Logistics Agency’s Joint Reserve Force participated in the sixth annual Joint Reserve Training Readiness Exercise at Fort Eustis, Va., April 16-21.
During the exercise, reservists from all four military services encountered various training scenarios that helped them hone their marksmanship, ability to identify and react to improvised explosive devices, first aid skills, and more. The Humvee Egress Assistance Trainer was one scenario Campbell said he will remember for a long time.
“Even though I knew the HEAT was a simulated version of a Humvee, my adrenaline level was high,” he said. “When you’re rolling over you become disoriented. Things are not where they used to be when the vehicle was sitting on four wheels.”
Navy Cmdr. Eric Stenzel, the JRF’s director of training and readiness, said the JRTRX is a tremendous training opportunity that fosters a joint environment. That environment helps the reservists, who are stationed throughout the United States at the agency’s primary-level field activities, effectively work together.
“This exercise has morphed with the aid from comments and feedback from previous participants and those who have deployed to help us focus and improve on the training our reservists need to deploy,” Stenzel said. “The JRTRX basically helps them become ready for when they become mobilized into a hostile environment. It gives them confidence while deployed.”
Army Sgt. 1st Class Daniel Hernandez, a drill sergeant with the Army Reserve’s 1st Battalion, 317th Infantry Regiment, Fort Story, Va., led a squad of JRF service members through a wooded path riddled with mock IEDs.
“This training course gives them a basic assessment on IEDs. How to look for them, what to look for, how they’re emplaced and deployed, and how to react to it,” he said. “This is just a preliminary training to get them thinking before they deploy and get to their (mobilization) site.”
Hernandez added that part of the IED training also included having the teams develop nine-line unexploded ordinance reports as well as nine-line medical reports. The reports are used to report the explosives and any resultant casualties to other units.
THE JRTRX is a learning experience for the JRF, said Navy Rear Adm. Patricia Wolfe, the DLA Joint Reserve Force director.
“The participants will be able to do some things they haven’t done in the past as well as do some things to calibrate and improve their skills such as weapons qualifications,” she said.
Wolfe addressed the reservists at the JRTRX and advised them that “being ready is not only about mobilization.”
“DLA is the warfighter support, not just for a war, but for anything that goes on in the world, like an earthquake in Haiti or a tsunami in Japan,” she said. “I’m going to call on Thursday and need you to be moving on Sunday.”
Wolfe emphasized that because of potential mobilizations, the JRF team members need to keep their immunizations, medical readiness and combat skills up to date.
“This week’s JRTRX is your opportunity to get as much of that current and ready and prepare yourself for something that might happen that we hope will never happen, because the best-case scenario is that we maintain a peaceful world and we have no natural disasters,” she said. “Unfortunately, that’s not the reality of life. So, be ready for reality. Because when the warfighter goes out [or] disaster response goes out, DLA is right there with them.”
More than 800 DLA reservists have deployed 60 days or longer since Sept. 11, 2001, said Air Force Capt. Bryan Lewis, JRF public affairs officer.
“On average, over the past year, 65 reservists are deployed at any given time,” he said.
DLA Director Navy Vice Adm. Mark Harnitchek briefed the assembled reservists during an evening town hall meeting Apr. 17.
“I can tell you that after my deployment in 2007-2008, anytime I ran into a DLA person, you could rest assured that 80 percent of the time it was a reservist,” he said. “I really count on what you do. What you do and how you support DLA is extremely important.”
Harnitchek thanked the service members and expressed how difficult it must be for them to balance not only full-time civilian lives but reserve responsibilities as well.
“I don’t know how you do it,” he said. “But having you all here assembled for duty to hone your combat skills is important, because you all deploy into combat areas. The skills you learn through this exercise are extremely important. You never know when you’re going to have to save your life or someone else’s life.”
Stenzel said the ultimate goal of the JRTRX was having DLA’s reservists leave the training with increased knowledge of how DLA operates and a better sense of comfort with weapons and keeping themselves safe when they deploy.
“I want our reservists walking out of the JRTRX saying, ‘I’m ready! I understand where I’m going to go and what I’m going to do when I get there to protect me and my team in a hostile environment,’” he said.
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 05.07.2012 14:18 |
| Story ID: | 88031 |
| Location: | FORT EUSTIS, VA, US |
| Web Views: | 37 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, DLA Joint Reserve Force members improve combat skills, enhance readiness, by Al Betancourt, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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