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By Kirsten Hampton
Aviators occasionally use the term “max gross weight” to describe an aircraft carrying a heavy load.
The expression is certainly apt in describing First Army’s mission this spring to mobilize the 40th Combat Aviation Brigade to the Middle East for a nine-month deployment.
Challenges – big ones – were present from the start.
Even as the 40th prepared to head to Fort Hood, Texas, to partner with the 166th Aviation Brigade, a once-in-a-century blizzard and cold snap hit the Lone Star State, bursting water mains and crippling electric grids. The 40th – which has Soldiers and elements spread across nine states – was unable to travel to Texas to begin training. By the time the nearly 1,100 Soldiers arrived three weeks later, timelines were already askew.
“That was tough,” said Lt. Col. Ted Sauter, commander of the 2-291st Aviation Regiment, 166th Aviation Brigade. “These Soldiers had made significant life decisions at home based on their deployment timeline: leave time from their civilian jobs, breaking leases, family living arrangements. A three-week delay caused significant stress on the system.”
Even more, the delay meant that some individual readiness requirements – carefully timed to be current for the deployment – would need to be redone. Weapons qualifications was a good example: with that, came the stress of reallocating training time, procuring the ammunition, and then determining cost responsibilities between federal and state National Guard dollars.
COVID-19 added another degree of difficulty. Soldiers who had gotten their first shot with state National Guard assets were supposed to get the second dose with vaccines purchased by the home state. Additionally, after receiving any vaccine, pilots cannot fly for 48 hours, a reality that had to be factored into training timelines. And still others declined to receive the vaccination which has not been mandated by the Department of the Army.
“These are units that certainly took COVID seriously,” Sauter said. “They’d lost two of their Soldiers to the virus prior to mobilization. Force protection was near and dear to them but getting the shot had a lot of complicated factors related to it.”
The relevant and rigorous pre-combat training that First Army Observer Coach/Trainers facilitated for the 40th CAB was at the heart of the unit’s time in Fort Hood. That, too, came with significant challenges.
Because the 40th has Soldiers from nine states – California, Washington, Alaska, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Minnesota and New Mexico – many had never met, let alone worked and trained together. Logistics, maintenance, communications, ground transportation and aviation operations – UH-60 Blackhawk and CH-47 Chinook – all needed to be synched and melded into an effective, integrated Task Force.
“It’s only at mobilization that we as OC/Ts and our partner units can fully develop a true understanding of the challenges we’ve got ahead of us,” Sauter said.
Often, Sauter said, geographically dispersed units like the 40th will be strong in company and platoon skills but will need the training time to master battalion-level skills since troops have not had many opportunities to train together yet. He emphasized that the first step is getting all Soldiers on the same page and smoothing out any fissures that may cross state lines: “How the unit in Colorado does it may be different than how Big Army does it or even how the unit in New Mexico does it,” he said. “It can be tough from the command and control perspective until all that is worked through.”
On top of all these challenges, the Soldiers from the 40th arrived at Fort Hood after a historically busy year fulfilling requirements with the Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA) part of the National Guard mission. Soldiers had been activated for significant stretches to respond to domestic wildfires, floods, civil unrest, riots and COVID relief efforts.
“They’ve been going hard,” Sauter said, “and I think there is a great desire to look beyond Fort Hood and the mission ahead.” Sauter said that his OC/Ts had to recognize that eagerness to get on to the deployment without sacrificing the critical training that must be completed and mastered prior to departure for the Middle East.
“I think for them as a unit and for us as OC/Ts, the real payoff is when they start to see the growth in their skillsets and recognize the successes they’re having as a cohesive team,” Sauter said.
The 40th was validated in late April and will move on to their mission. Brigade Commander Col. Alan Gronewold credited the 166th Aviation Brigade with facilitating the conditions that led to their successful final cumulative training events.
“The 166th has been extremely helpful in training us and getting us in the direction we need to go,” he said in a recent interview.
First Army leaders often tell our partners that, “Our mission is your success,” and Col. Jennifer Reynolds, brigade commander of the 166th, emphasized that point.
“Approximately 50 percent of Army Aviation is National Guard and Reserve,” she said. “Our mission here is to provide observer coach/trainers to assist units that come through with whatever they need so that they leave here much more ready for their mission downrange.”
| Date Taken: | 04.22.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 04.23.2021 15:38 |
| Story ID: | 394625 |
| Location: | FORT HOOD, TEXAS, US |
| Web Views: | 257 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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