Photo By Staff Sgt. Tegan Kucera | Spc. Elnois Norat, a native of Santa Isabel, Puerto Rico, and a communications...... read more read more
Subscribe
When hurricane Maria struck Puerto Rico, it knocked out communications on the island for over a week. No one had a way of letting friends and family know how they fared, but one soldier helped to fix that.
All civilian communication was down on the island and the Puerto Rican National Guard was called up on state of emergency orders to set up the military equipment to remedy the situation.
“The goal was to set up communications,” said Sgt. Roberto Ramos, a signal soldier assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 125th Military Police Battalion based in Ponce, Puerto Rico. “Our job was to help other units get in touch with their loved ones in the U.S. and around the world using the military communication equipment.”
Ramos said all the civilian equipment was down so, being a signal soldier, he knew he had the equivocal resources not only for the 125th MP BN, but for any soldier. He said he soon was providing communication to anyone who wanted to use it.
“Not only our Soldiers were using the equipment, but civilians from around the island were coming to us to get in touch with their families. It was nice to provide that assistance to my neighbors,” said Ramos.
Now this summer Ramos is providing communications for the military police who are at the Land Forces Training Center Drawsko, Poland, participating in Saber Strike18, a long-standing U.S. Army Europe-led cooperative training, designed to enhance interoperability among allies and regional partners.
The 125th MP BN is in charge of the military police operations within the exercise and is leading MP companies from Michigan and Indiana as well as active duty units. They are all in a field environment in Poland so communication is very important.
“It is an excellent opportunity for us to get in the field experience outside of Puerto Rico,” said Ramos.
Ramos wants to share what he and the other Puerto Rican soldiers learned with not only the U.S. army forces, but with the soldiers participating in Saber Strike 18.
| Date Taken: | 06.05.2018 |
| Date Posted: | 09.30.2018 17:42 |
| Story ID: | 280341 |
| Location: | DRAWSKO POMORSKIE, PL |
| Web Views: | 703 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Communication reunites families, by SSG Tegan Kucera, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
