Photo By Scott Sturkol | Students in Fort McCoy's Cold-Weather Operations Course (CWOC) Class 22-01 work on...... read more read more
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During each session of the Fort McCoy Cold-Weather Operations Course (CWOC), students spend time in the field surviving in improvised shelters they built with materials they find and have with them.
Lead CWOC Instructor Hunter Heard, who works for contractor Veterans Range Solutions which supports the Directorate of Plans, Training, Mobilization and Security, or DPTMS, students spend approximately two dozen hours during and average 14-day training course learning about and building improvised shelters.
“They get lots of time in building shelters in varying terrain during the training,” Heard said. “We teach them to build a two-person covered shelter with several inches of natural insulation, which we’ve seen the students build.”
Heard said the most important factor for each shelter is making sure it’s well insulated. Some students have used evergreen boughs combined with leaves and debris. Others have incorporated military ponchos with natural materials.
During CWOC Class 22-01’s field training with shelter building, nearly 150 Marines built shelters in a variety of ways. Some used the equipment they had along with natural materials and others took advantage of already fallen trees to build shelters around.
“It’s really about adapting to the environment they have around them and then building their thermal shelters from that point on,” Heard said.
Marines with the 6th Marine Regiment and other units with the 2nd Marine Expeditionary Force participated in four tracks of three-day field training exercise courses in early to mid-December 2021. Among the training was this training in improvised shelter building.
During a regular CWOC class training session, training includes a wide range of cold-weather subjects in addition to shelter building, including skiing and snowshoe training, how to use ahkio sleds, setting up the Arctic 10-person cold-weather tent, cold-water immersion, and more. Training also focuses on terrain and weather analysis, risk management, proper wear of cold-weather clothing, developing winter fighting positions in the field, and camouflage and concealment, Hamilton said.
Heard coordinates training with fellow instructors Manny Ortiz, Brian Semann, and Joe Ernst.
Fort McCoy was established in 1909 and its motto is to be the “Total Force Training Center.” Located in the heart of the upper Midwest, Fort McCoy is the only U.S. Army installation in Wisconsin.
The installation has provided support and facilities for the field and classroom training of more than 100,000 military personnel from all services nearly every year since 1984.
Learn more about Fort McCoy online at https://home.army.mil/mccoy, on Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” and on Twitter by searching “usagmccoy.” Also try downloading the Digital Garrison app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base.
| Date Taken: | 12.28.2021 |
| Date Posted: | 12.28.2021 21:54 |
| Story ID: | 412068 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 222 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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