Photo By 1st Lt. Louis Stevens | Staff Sgt. Douglas Brill of 1223rd Engineering Company, 122nd Engineering Battalion,...... read more read more
CINCU, Romania -- When Staff Sgt. Douglas Brill first joined the South Carolina National Guard 9 years ago, he was planning to be a truck driver. “But the 1223rd Engineering Company saw I had been a combat engineer with the Marines and said, ‘hey, you need to be with us!’” When Brill realized there was a unit that fit his job skills in his hometown, he said, “I switched over that day.”
He is now on his 5th overseas project with the Guard, as he directs the construction of a target shelter on a tank live-fire range at Joint National Training Center, Cincu, Romania as part of Resolute Castle 17.
During his 7 years in the Marines, Brill was a combat engineer, and found himself stationed overseas in Okinawa, Japan, and Korea. “The discipline is a lot stricter in the Marines, in PT and behavior.” He joined the Guard after an 8-year hiatus: “I’m a more laid-back family man myself now, but it’s still in my blood to be wide open.”
During that hiatus, he sharpened his engineering skills as building roads and runways for Banks Construction around Charleston. “It’s awesome being around people that bring a different attitude and culture.”
The National Guard has kept him travelling. “I’ve really been more places with the Guard than the Marines—El Salvador, Honduras, Oman, Afghanistan, and now Romania.” It has been an opportunity both to see the world and to help other people. “We were building a hospital in El Salvador, and older ladies would walk in, tears in their eyes, to thank us for what we were doing.”
Brill described visiting a 650-year-old fortified church right down the street from the training area in Cincu: “They opened up the floor to show us the well and the escape tunnels—I love history and I love the Lord, so going to church there was a great combination. And the local people said they were grateful we were there.”
Brill’s leadership philosophy is simple: “Lead by example—no one’s going to respect you if they don’t see you doing it, and full-bore give it a hundred percent every day, and you can’t go wrong.”
Resolute Castle particularly focuses on engineer skillsets, deploying active Navy, Army Reserve, and Army National Guard engineer units to work alongside the Romanian 10th Engineer Brigade and the U.K. Royal Monmouthshire Royal Engineers on training infrastructure at the Joint National Training Center in Cincu, Romania. Additionally, Resolute Castle has overseen engineering operations in Poland conducted by the 15th Engineer Battalion, 18th Military Police Brigade.
The mission supports Operation Atlantic Resolve through developing training infrastructure in eastern Europe, creating interoperability among NATO forces, and enhancing stability and resolve among Allied nations.
| Date Taken: | 08.25.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 08.27.2017 04:00 |
| Story ID: | 246182 |
| Location: | CINCU, RO |
| Hometown: | BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA, US |
| Hometown: | CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE, US |
| Hometown: | COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | GREENVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | MOBILE, ALABAMA, US |
| Hometown: | MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA, US |
| Hometown: | SUMMERVILLE, SOUTH CAROLINA, US |
| Hometown: | TIFTON, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 554 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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