DVIDS Hub works best with JavaScript enabled

From hammers to claws

Photo By Staff Sgt. Cynthia Spalding | Members of the 84th Engineer Support Company, 6th Engineer Battalion, Joint Base...... read more read more

ANCHORAGE, AK, UNITED STATES

05.18.2012

Story by Staff Sgt. Cynthia Spalding

Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson

DONNELLY TRAINING AREA, Alaska – Some soldiers transition from building roads and bridges to clearing roadways of bombs and explosives during training here, May 10.

Soldiers with the 84th Engineer Support Company, 6th Engineer Battalion, have been tasked with a non-standard mission.

The 84th ESC’s specialty is horizontal construction. This includes anywhere from making roads to building bridges; however, their next deployment is setting them up for a change in gear – finding and neutralizing improvised explosive devices and other devies that hinder travel through Afghanistan.

They will be the soldiers who go out searching for and investigating any roadside bombs or mines so that others may pass through quickly and safely.

“The soldiers are coming along very well with their training,” said Army 2nd Lt. Evan Nelson, platoon leader of 3rd Platoon, 84th ESC. “We conducted a company level field training exercise back in April and that was our crawl phase.”

“We hadn’t really done a whole lot of route clearance training, so it was a lot of figuring out as we went and when we came out here for Operation Tundra Wolf II, we’re definitely where we should be in terms of our training,” said Nelson. “The guys are really starting to pick it up and embrace the challenge ahead of them.”

Route clearing is more than just going out and blowing up bombs. The bombs are not always sitting in wide-open, clearly seen spots; they have to be located, detected and then assessed. Without training to spot possible explosives or danger zones, the road might be cleared, but the team left in rubble.

“When we deploy we will be conducting route clearance at a very high operations tempo,” said Nelson. “That’s what we are trying to simulate here; every day we’re going out and conducting missions. Yesterday we went on an eight-hour mission, and today we were out again by noon doing another mission. This is all just to get us trained up on not only how to conduct a clearance but also get us used to the demanding work schedule we’re going to be on when we get deployed.”

This is the first time the 84th has had to switch gears. The Army, in need of more route-clearing teams, has called on soldiers in other engineer battalions to do the same thing.

While they are training for their upcoming deployment, their original job, horizontal construction, will still be their mission once they return home from Afghanistan. Until then, their primary focus in training will only be route clearance.

“As soon as we return home its back to doing construction until we’re tasked again with something new,” said Army Capt. David MacPhail, 84th ESC commander. “We’re engineers first, but being combat engineers is our mission.”