Photo By Lt. Col. Kevin Hynes | Members of the Rwanda Defense Force's Engineer Brigade work with Soldiers from the...... read more read more
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GAKO, Rwanda – Rwanda is known as “the nation of a thousand hills.”
For three weeks in March, the top of one of those hills was transformed into a bustling military hospital complex complete with access roads, tents, lighting, and guard towers, courtesy of a unique team of Rwanda Defence Force and Nebraska Army National Guard engineers.
According to Nebraska Army National Guard officials, the March 3-21 construction exercise was primarily designed to prepare the participating RDF engineers for potential future United Nations peacekeeping missions. It was also designed to give the Rwanda and Nebraska Soldiers an opportunity to work together as part of the National Guard’s State Partnership Program.
The six Nebraska Army National Guard Soldiers who participated in the exercise were all members of the Guard’s Wahoo-based 623rd Engineer Company. For the participating Nebraska Soldiers, who traveled nearly halfway around the world to contribute their construction skills to the exercise, the opportunity to travel to Central Africa and work on a construction project with their Rwandan counterparts was truly a once-in-lifetime opportunity.
“I’m having a lot of fun,” said Spc. Jayden Askew, a 623rd Engineer Co. carpentry and masonry specialist. Having only been in the unit a little more than a year, Askew – who works at a Lowes hardware store in Omaha in civilian life -- said he never imagined that his decision to join the Nebraska Army Guard would one-day lead him to the hills of equatorial Africa.
“Not in my wildest dreams,” he said, the sounds of construction equipment, hammering, conversations and laughter echoing around him. “I never expected to have an opportunity like this pop up… especially not this early in my military career.”
According to Lt. Col. Dennis Rieke, a University of Nebraska Medical Center physician’s assistant who served as the ranking U.S. military officer at the Rwandan “spoke site” during the March exercise, the Nebraskans had several key goals to accomplish during their mission to Rwanda.
The first, he said, was to build new relationships with members of the Rwandan medical and engineering forces after the new SPP relationship paused due to the novel coronavirus 2019 pandemic. The second, he said, was to represent U.S. Africa Command in assessing the Rwandans’ ability to construct a military hospital site, set up their new U.N. Level 2 field hospital, and then effectively conduct operations from the field site.
As part of this mission, the Wahoo and Rwandan engineers were responsible for working together to accomplish a number of key tasks. “They had to build a site from essentially scratch,” said Rieke. “That meant removing all the vegetation from a large, remote site – essentially jungle – and then building all of the site infrastructure including security berms, road accesses, lighting, tents and all of the rest of the base camp.”
For Sgt. 1st Class Todd Bretey, the fulltime readiness sergeant for the 623rd Eng. Co., this was his fourth time in Rwanda, having traveled to Central Africa multiple times to meet and plan with his Rwandan counterparts before the pandemic curtailed physical face-to-face engagements between the two SPP partners.
Bretey said that pause made this year’s engagement even more important. That’s why he took care in selecting Soldiers who had a wide variety of engineering talents along with good Soldiering skills.
“We selected people who have done well in the unit,” he said.
For example, Bretey said some of this year’s participants had been the unit’s nominees for the annual Nebraska Army National Guard’s Best Warrior Competition. Others had done extremely well at various military schools. Others had proven themselves as reliable Soldiers who had shown a willingness to “go beyond” during their weekend drills and two-week annual training.
“In a way, getting to come to Rwanda is a reward for their hard work within the unit,” Bretey said, adding that by selecting some of his unit’s top young Soldiers, it was hoped that the Nebraskans would be able to create an environment that would enable the two teams to quickly combine their military talents to tackle the various challenges facing them, while also setting the stage for future engagements.
That’s essentially what happened, Bretey said, adding that while the two teams brought different skills and experiences to the operations, they quickly became a strong combined team.
“(Both groups) have a lot of different skillsets,” said Bretey. “They’re learning from us and we’re learning from them.”
“For example, they have different types of lumber than we do back in the United States, so they have different ways of building structures with it,” he said. “We also have a lot of experience from the work we do back in the United States, which came in handy as we took the U.N. plans and translated them into actual structures. So, it was really good to be able to see what each of us have as skills and find ways to work together as a team.”
Spc. Tyler Tepe was one of those Nebraskans who was gaining both new experiences and new friends in Rwanda. An electrician in both civilian life and within the 623rd Eng. Co., Tepe said he learned a number of new skills while working in Rwanda. This included gaining insight into how different military engineers tackle similar challenges.
“It’s been kind of eye-opening to see how the RDF works and to just be in Rwanda in general,” Tepe said. “To work with them on a day-to-day basis has been a pretty cool and eye-opening experience.”
Another area involved finding ways to communicate between each other while also finding ways to tackle unexpected challenges, Tepe said. This showed him the value of both flexibility and clear communications.
“Probably the biggest thing is learning how to be more patient,” Tepe said. “I know that I am one of the younger Soldiers in the 623rd, but I’m learning that I need to have more patience with people who don’t have as much construction experience as I do.”
Tepe said that he enjoyed getting an opportunity to learn about people from a different culture while also sharing information about his life back in Nebraska. ‘It’s been fun hanging out with some of the RDF guys and getting to know them a little bit,” he said. “We’ve exchanged ‘What’s App’ addresses and things like that so that we can continue to talk to each other once the exercise is done. Stuff like that has been pretty fun.”
Askew said that he also gained significant experience in Rwanda. This included getting to drive one of the Rwandans large compactors as the team cleared underbrush from the training site and then graded it so that it could be effectively utilized. It also included getting the opportunity to work with the Rwandans in cutting lumber to specific lengths for the new guard towers they were building.
Askew said the Rwandans were extremely easy to work with. Some, he added, soon felt comfortable enough to begin to kid him about his age.
“Some of their sergeants and corporals who have been in for while started calling me a baby because I’m young,” Askew said, laughing. “But they’re very easy to work with. The language barrier is sometimes difficult, but overall, everyone seems like they’re in good spirits and understand how to help each other out.”
Askew added he hopes this isn’t the last time he gets the opportunity to work with the Rwandan engineers. “I really hope that I get the chance to come back here someday and see how much these guys have grown.”
That’s exactly the goal, said Maj. Alex Zeller, Nebraska National Guard State Partnership Program coordinator who traveled to Rwanda in March to see first-hand the interactions taking place between the two organization. Zeller also met and worked with local officials from the U.S. Embassy and the Rwanda Defence Force headquarters to develop plans for future SPP engagements.
Zeller said the exercise was an important step as the two organizations begin to conduct more face-to-face engagements after COVID-19 forced a pause in activities for nearly two years. He added that the benefits to the Nebraska National Guard Soldiers and Airmen selected to participate are numerous.
“Bringing our Soldiers and Airmen over here is an opportunity for them to get out of Nebraska, to get out their normal training routines, to travel to a different country almost a world away and to see another force and how they do operations,” Zellers said. “It’s also a chance to learn how the Rwanda Defence Force is structured and how it does its daily tasks.”
“For a land-locked state like Nebraska, some of these kids will never get an opportunity to travel around the world like this,” he added. “A lot of the Soldiers and Airmen I’ve talked to, once they return to Nebraska, they’re just thrilled that they had the opportunity… they all want to come back.”
And therein lies the foundation upon which future engagements can be built. Often, Soldiers and Airmen who participate in SPP activities early in their careers tend to keep in touch with the counterparts they meet, often getting the chance to meet again later in their careers. It’s through the development of long-term relationships that future successes are created.
“I definitely think that we’ve laid a good foundation from which to continue to work with them because the relationship between the Nebraska and the Rwandans engineers is really good,” said Bretey
“I thought this would be a pretty cool experience because I’ve only been in the United States,” added Tepe. “But just to be here and see how everything has been going… I would definitely do it again if I was given the chance.”
(U.S. Air National Guard story by Lt. Col. Kevin Hynes)
| Date Taken: | 04.02.2022 |
| Date Posted: | 07.07.2022 13:04 |
| Story ID: | 424518 |
| Location: | RW |
| Web Views: | 191 |
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