Photo By Joshua Cohen | Staff Sgt. Wayne Hermann, a Liaison Monitoring Team leader assigned to Delta Company,...... read more read more
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Approximately 40 Soldiers with Delta Company, 186th Brigade Support Battalion (Mountain), 86th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Mountain), Vermont Army National Guard received specialized asymmetrical training including a mounted improvised explosive device leadership reaction course conducted March 13 at the Vermont National Guard Camp Ethan Allen Training Site in Jericho, Vt.
D Co. Soldiers will deploy in support of Bravo Company, 1st Squadron, 172nd Cavalry (Mountain), 86th IBCT (MTN), VTARNG in an upcoming overseas deployment.
During this training phase, Liaison Monitoring Teams are put through a course consisting of a key leader engagement scenarios with U.S. Army Security Forces Assistance Brigade Soldiers role-playing local community members, said Capt. Tony Cosentino, 1-172 CAV (MTN), non-kinetic battalion operations officer.
"With extensive in-country experience, SFAB training introduced the difficulties of communicating through an interpreter," Cosentino said.
Contracted personnel were also on-hand to instruct Soldiers in aspects of asymmetrical warfare and key leader civic engagement.
The IED leadership reaction course began with a LMT moving out in a Humvee. Advancing down a snow and mud covered road, forested on both sides, Cpl. Dylan Tanner, a radio operator with D Co., 186th BSB (MTN), used his M-4 carbine’s optical sight to scan for unusual or out-of-place objects. Tanner quickly identified a possible simulated improvised explosive device 100 meters ahead while the Humvee driver, Pvt. Katja Langmaid, brought the vehicle to a halt.
“Depending upon the type of threat, there are different immediate action drills we go through, for a suspected IED we have a different procedure then an ambush,” Langmaid explained.
Simultaneously, Staff Sgt. Wayne Herrmann, LMT squad leader, plotted the object’s location and called in the contact to higher headquarters while completing a nine-line IED report over radio.
Chris Egan, a contractor with the Vermont National Guard asymmetrical threat training program, said that often an obvious decoy device is intended to push troops back to an area with a potentially live device.
In the next training scenario, a SFAB member played the role of police chief for a small village where youth reportedly assaulted a teenager in an unprovoked attack. During the unscripted training, Herrmann attempted to gain information about the incident speaking through an interpreter played by Tanner while Langmaid provided security.
“We attempt to extract information from the chief in order to assess conditions leading up to the incident while compiling a list of requests in order to build trust,” Herrmann said.
Finally, the team had to withdraw from the key leader engagement and return to base while observing terrain for land mines, IEDs and potential ambush sites.
“Our largest mission will be to keep the peace,” Tanner said.
| Date Taken: | 03.16.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 03.31.2021 14:01 |
| Story ID: | 392644 |
| Location: | JERICHO, VERMONT, US |
| Web Views: | 207 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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