ST. CROIX, U.S. Virgin Islands - It isn’t often that Reserve Soldiers from Indiana get to travel to the Virgin Islands as part of their two-week annual training.
So when the Soldiers of the 3rd Battalion, 411th Regiment (Logistical Support Battalion) got the opportunity to be a part of Operation Forward Guardian II, a natural disaster response exercise June 4 - 8 on the island of St. Croix, U.S. Virgin Islands, they made the most of it.
“For me, it was kind of one of those once-in-a-lifetime missions,” Master Sgt. James Dickman, from Cary, Illinois, the battalion’s operations noncommissioned officer in charge said.
“It will probably be something that the Soldiers will never forget.”
The 3rd Battalion, 411th Regiment, had been almost constantly mobilized for most of the past 10 years at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, where they provided logistical support for Soldiers preparing to deploy overseas. When the unit came off of mobilization orders earlier this year, Dickman said they needed to find a place to conduct their unit’s annual training.
“We started contacting units in the Virgin Islands National Guard, and they needed support, so lo and behold, here we are,” Dickman said.
The 3rd Battalion, 411th Regiment (Logistical Support Battalion) brought their expertise in maintenance and transportation to the operation, where they supported 15 units from the VING, and one from the Virgin Islands Air National Guard. About 600 Soldiers took part in the operation.
Thirty-five Soldiers from the battalion traveled to St. Croix to support the operation. The Soldiers spent most of their two-week annual training staying at the 210th VING Regional Training Institute, a brand new facility on the island. They spent the five days of the exercise on a field training site.
The Soldiers remained busy. A crew of nine mechanics and six transportation Soldiers went right to work. Within a day of being on the ground, a team of five of the mechanics left on a small plane to go to the neighboring island of St. Thomas where they performed annual maintenance on three vehicles.
Meanwhile, the other mechanics performed maintenance on light medium tactical vehicles, Humvees, a tractor-trailer and a scoop loader at the RTI. The mechanics continued performing maintenance on the vehicles until almost the end of the mission, servicing 18 additional vehicles.
The first job for the transportation crew came on the third day of the mission, when they worked hand-in-hand with VING Soldiers to fix a winch system on a tractor-trailer. After that job was complete, the transportation Soldiers went right into doing what they do best – providing driver’s training for Soldiers.
The transportation Soldiers trained and road-tested 33 VING Soldiers on driving Humvees and tractor-trailers. Many of the Soldiers had never learned preventative maintenance checks and were driving Army vehicles for the very first time. Despite the challenges of driving on the opposite side of the road, the battalion commander said he was pleased with their efforts.
“The Soldiers did a great job,” battalion commander Lt. Col. Larry E. Cox said. “The maintenance folks and drivers and the truckmasters did about all I could have expected as far as actually getting to train people and help increase the readiness here in terms of vehicles. My supply folks did real well as far as log pack operations and taking care of things. My staff also got a great experience in terms of being able to coordinate a unit move – it’s not like we’re taking a couple Humvees to annual training and driving to mission – we actually got on a plane did all the things as if we were traveling to some place where there was a threat. It’s not really a deployment, but as far as the movement piece, it exercises a lot of the same things, and that was a huge learning event for us.”
The mission was particularly special for Cox, who returned to the battalion two months ago after commanding another unit for a couple years.
“I absolutely loved my time here, so coming back was a no-brainer,” he said. “I actually considered retiring until I saw this job was open.”
The battalion’s communications Soldiers also played a large role in the operation. Two of the unit’s communications Soldiers – Sgt. John Newton, of Indianapolis, and Spc. Russell Swigart of Naples, Florida - also traveled to St. Thomas three days before the exercise, where they conducted annual maintenance on 49 radio systems in one day before returning to St. Croix on a barge to join the rest of the unit for the operation. Meanwhile, two more Soldiers – Sgt. Danny Hampton of Lafayette, Indiana, and Spc. Noah Cline of Franklin, Indiana – set up three radio transmitting antennas on sites throughout the island, including a mountain, to provide the communications platform across the island for the exercise.
The operation as a whole included components of the Army Reserve, VING, Virgin Islands Air National Guard, and the Air Force Reserve, who flew the 3rd Battalion Soldiers from Indianapolis to St. Croix.
Among the emergency training featured in the exercise was a medical evacuation at a field near the Juan F. Luis Hospital. VING Soldiers transported an artificial casualty to a mock FOB. Other training included vehicle recovery conducted by the VING 651st Maintenance Company, improvised explosive devices and traffic control points training from the 661st Military Police Law and Order Detachment, as well as a water delivery missions by the 610th Quartermaster Company.
“Operation Forward Guardian II is a military-centric operation that was born in the operations office of the VING,” Brig. Gen. Elton Lewis, the assistant adjutant general for the VING explained. “It tests the readiness of the VING to support our civil authorities here in the Virgin Islands if it becomes necessary.”