Photo By Sgt. Matthew Lucibello | U.S. Army 1st Sgt. Brandon Hite, an automated logistical specialist assigned to...... read more read more
A bus lies still inside the parking lot of the Southington Readiness Center. The bright white paint job stands out amongst the camouflage uniforms of soldiers from the 143rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion and their olive drab duffle bags. These soldiers are about to depart Connecticut, this time not to fight the coronavirus pandemic, but for their scheduled annual training.
For Private First Class Mark McDermott and the other soldiers of the 143rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, this is just another adventure.
McDermott, an intelligence analyst assigned to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 143rd Combat Sustainment Battalion, Connecticut Army National Guard, joins his fellow soldiers as they prepare to depart for Fort Devens Reserve Forces Training Area, also known as Fort Devens, Massachusetts. His mission: to qualify on the M4 carbine and M249 Squad Automatic Weapon, it will be his first field training exercise since Basic Training.
“I’m excited,” said McDermott. “This will be the first time out in the field for just about a year for me”.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, soldiers from many units across Connecticut have been called to serve their communities. As a result of this, many units such as the 143rd Combat Sustainment Support Battalion, also known as the 143rd CSSB, have prioritized and shifted their available resources and efforts away from conducting field training exercises to combating the virus.
McDermott was one such soldier called up in response, serving on 502F orders, also known as “COVID orders”, helping local medical centers, such as Griffin Health, screen citizens for the coronavirus and aiding in administrative roles.
“ I worked at it, I want to say, for about three months,” said McDermott. “We were making sure when the cars came by, we would ask them just different information like, your name, do you have an appointment today, et cetera”.
That would not be all however, besides supporting efforts at Griffin Health, McDermott would travel between other locations providing support.
“Sometimes we go to universities, or we would go to just parking lots, anywhere where they found that it would be the most convenient for people to come in,” McDermott explains. “Even though this pandemic is hard, and we all need to put in our part, we also want to make sure that if we can make it at least a little easier for people, we want to do that.”
This upcoming training will be the first time McDermott gets to familiarize himself with these weapon systems since the start of the pandemic.
“We started getting back on the normal mission,” McDermott continues. “In preparation for this AT (Annual Training), we were setting up different equipment, making sure that we not only knew how to fire the weapons but how to properly reload, we’ve started to come back to the original mission of the CSSB.”
Being able to have soldiers proficient with their assigned weapons is a crucial component of individual soldier readiness that affects overall unit readiness. No one knows how important this is more than 143rd CSSB Headquarters and Headquarters Company First Sergeant Brandon Hite.
“For us to do the training and count for our METL (Mission Essential Tasks List), we have to have a certain percentage of soldiers ready and available,” said Hite. “Due to 502F they have been doing that mission rather than training.”
Some soldiers were able to qualify previously, either prior to the coronavirus pandemic, or in lulls during the pandemic response mission, however not all soldiers were able to have this opportunity.
“We came to Fort Devens in November to qualify with our weapons,” explains Hite. “Not all our soldiers were able to qualify so we came back here so soldiers could have a chance to qualify.”
If a unit is unable to have enough trained and proficient soldiers for a mission, they will not be able to support certain missions, and possibly, not be able to deploy. This is especially critical for a Combat Sustainment Battalion, whose purpose is to be ready and able to provide support to the soldier during missions domestically or abroad.
In addition to enabling their own soldiers to qualify and get some range time, the CSSB will also be facilitating training for other Connecticut Army National Guard units while at Fort Devens.
“The 1048th (1048th Medium Transportation Company) will be sending 16 soldiers here tomorrow and the band (102d Army Band) will be sending 10 soldiers here to qualify,” said Hite. “They have also been on 502F orders for the last year and a half.”
During this time, soldiers will not only get to shoot and qualify with their assigned weapons in the daytime under normal conditions but they will also get the opportunity to practice their marksmanship at night in low light to black out conditions. Additionally, they will also get experience using their weapons in a simulated nuclear, biological and chemical, or NBC, environment, in which they will have to engage targets while also wearing gas masks.
“All these soldiers are going to get trigger time,” said Hite. “It’s going to improve unit readiness, the units will have a higher percentage of qualified shooters in their possession.”
| Date Taken: | 08.19.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 08.19.2021 17:08 |
| Story ID: | 403562 |
| Location: | SOUTHINGTON, CONNECTICUT, US |
| Web Views: | 381 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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