Photo By Staff Sgt. Sarah Myrick | Spc. Ryan Munsey, a track vehicle mechanic with the Maine Army National Guard’s...... read more read more
Soldiers from the Maine Army National Guard’s Forward Support Company, 133rd Engineer Battalion travelled to Camp Dodge, Iowa to master their skill sets using the experts and state of the art equipment available at the Sustainment Training Center, September 9-22.
Forward support companies are unique because they have at least 10 different job specialties within them, like small arms repair, welding, track vehicle repair and radio/communications security.
Valuable job specific training for all skill sets is possible at the Sustainment Training Center located there, which is designed for these maintenance specialties. The training center is also well equip with instructors able to support unit rotations.
“Soldiers of the FSC are increasing their technical abilities that are related to their job skills,” said Lt. Col. Joshua Doscinski, the commander of the 133rd Engineer Battalion. “Doing this has a positive effect on our unit’s readiness.”
Training focused on refreshing knowledge, utilizing new and exciting equipment and honing the skills of often overlooked job specialties.
“This training offers the Soldiers, noncommissioned officers, and commissioned officers of the FSC some innovative, motivational, and efficient techniques for training the low density job specialties of the unit,” said Doscinski. “My hope is that they take some of the training techniques they used at Camp Dodge back to Maine with them, improve upon them, and replicate them over the coming years.”
“Camp Dodge is perfect for maintenance,” said Sgt. 1st Class David Lane, the maintenance platoon leader. “They have all the training capabilities for the lesser known specialties.”
The motor transport operators, responsible for transporting personnel and cargo, conducted daily tactical convoys to practice driving different vehicles, radio communication and water and fuel refilling procedures.
The distributions platoon and culinary specialists utilized the airfield on Camp Dodge to conduct sling load training with a UH 60L Blackhawk Helocopter, in which cargo is suspended underneath the helicopter for transporting external loads during flight. Practicing sling loading cargo was especially important for the culinary specialists who would need to utilize this procedure to drop Utilized Group Rations meals, Meals Ready to Eat meals and other supplies to an assault kitchen in remote locations. This was the first time most soldiers were able to conduct this valuable training exercise.
The small arms repairers performed maintenance, ordered new parts, and disassembled and reassembled a variety of firearms their specialty is responsible for maintaining.
“Iowa has a lot more resources than the state of Maine,” said Spc. Tyler Hish, a small arms/artillery repairer with the 133rd Engineer Battalion. “They have weapons that we don’t normally see and proper electronic technical manuals that we don’t always have access to.”
Hish said he trained on weapons and tools at Camp Dodge that he’d never even seen before like the M110 sniper rifle, M321 submachine gun and the assembly tools of the 777 Howitzer.
“Usually on drill weekends I’m helping mechanics or doing tasks around the armory,” said Hish. “This training has been quite a treat.”
“Soldiers join the Army because they want to do the job that they joined to do, and that’s our goal,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Carl Sticht, the battalion command sergeant major. “I think it’s awesome that they get to hone their skills and learn a lot of new things.”
Sticht said Soldiers can utilize what they’ve learned at Camp Dodge to train at home. They can develop the subject matter experts that they already have, enforce what they learned and request materials for training on weapons and welding.
“There’s a lot of smiles out there,” said Sticht. “Everyone seems really happy with what’s going on and I think it’s something we should sustain.”
NCOs and Soldiers both said they felt like moral was high and they could see a change.
“I’d love to see us come back here,” said Sgt. 1st Class David Lane, the maintenance platoon sergeant.
The track vehicle mechanics performed maintenance on multiple, tracked vehicles at the same time. Maine has one only tracked vehicle in the entire state due to cost of equipment.
“The track mechanics are able to pull the engine out, do a service on it and put it back in. That’s something we haven’t done back home in a long time,” said Lane. “A lot of these vehicle repairs can’t be done during a two-day drill weekend, because some of them may take up to a week.”
The welders were also able to complete a few projects, including a tool designed to help replace a large fan assembly in a M88 track vehicle, using state of the art equipment they’d never used before.
Sgt. Daniel Wittnebel, the section leader of the allied trades welders said he’d never gotten a chance to work with a lot of the equipment, such as the computer numerical controls, a process in manufacturing that involves the use of computers to control machine tools.
“I’ve always wondered how it worked and now I know,” said Wittnebel.
| Date Taken: | 09.21.2017 |
| Date Posted: | 09.21.2017 18:07 |
| Story ID: | 249171 |
| Location: | CAMP DODGE, IOWA, US |
| Web Views: | 308 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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