Photo By Staff Sgt. Apolonia Gaspar | Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technicians (89D) within 71st Ordnance Group train...... read more read more
The 71st Ordnance Group Special Operations Forces (SOF) Support Training (SST) brought a selected group of experienced and knowledgeable explosive ordnance disposal (EOD) team leaders throughout 71st EOD to address how EOD supports SOF in unconventional ways from pre-mission planning to post-mission products during the two week course at Yakima training center, Washington, 21-31 March 2022.
“Every SST course is going to change as the mission changes,” said Sgt. 1st Class Corey Sage, an EOD tech with 761st Ordnance Company, working as an observer, controller/ trainer (OC/T).
“So when it was initially started we were training guys in Afghanistan to support special operations in Afghanistan and that is vastly different from supporting operations in South America, Africa, or the Pacific.”
The 71st SST must continually be forward-thinking, innovative, and aggressive, both in understanding how warfare is evolving and in adapting training to meet those challenges.
“It's a baseline training for an EOD company to get exposure to the mindset, the tactical approach, and the thought process and problem solving that they'll see on a SOF mission as opposed to a conventional mission,” said Staff Sgt. Kooper Fordyce, an EOD tech with 62nd Ordnance Company, working as an observer, controller/ trainer (OC/T). “It’s always been conventional missions in the past and taking conventional tactics into a SOF mission will result in failure.”
Thus, to be effective, EOD techs must train under conditions that are as realistic as possible and come as close as possible to placing the individual, the team, and the unit in the environment and situations they will face in combat with SOF. Training realism is one of the key measures of training effectiveness and the SST provides the teams to be individually put through a culminating exercise, referred to as a “full-mission profile” designed to simulate a raid in an urban environment.
“I deployed four years ago and we got a minimal amount of training prior but it was not SOF baseline training,” said Fordyce. “It's great that I get to share my experience and to give people a better idea of what they might actually see downrange.”
Experienced leaders and training is how we fulfill our missions; it is the way we develop the competent Soldiers, leaders, and for 71st EOD– competent EOD technicians that support one of the Army's priority: readiness.
| Date Taken: | 03.31.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 04.07.2022 19:57 |
| Story ID: | 418094 |
| Location: | YAKIMA TRAINING CENTER, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 116 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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