Photo By Pfc. Drew Balstad | Members of 3rd platoon Bravo Company of the 231st Maneuver Task Force watch as a UH-60...... read more read more
KACANIK, Kosovo -- Members of 3rd platoon Bravo Company of the 231st Maneuver Task Force conducted Quick Reaction Force training here recently in order to be prepared for — pretty much any mission.
The purpose was to test and validate the platoon on tasks they will be performing in their new role as QRF for Camp Bondsteel, the main U.S. and multi-national headquarters for NATO troops in Kosovo's Multi-National Task Force-East. They must have the capability to react to varying emergencies or incidents either by ground or by air at a moment's notice.
"We have to be able to respond anywhere in our area of operation for scenarios like MEDEVAC requests, vehicle rollovers, cordon and search operations downed aircraft and many other scenarios," said 2nd Lt. Randy L. Fuss, Lake Park, Minn.
The day's training helped prepared the members of the platoon for actual operations.
"In real life situations, you never know what you're going to come across," said Sgt. Ian M. Busta, a medic for the platoon from Glyndon, Minn. "It helps the platoon's perspective on what you should be looking for and what you're going to do."
Fuss expanded on this and explained how the day's training was performed by the platoon.
"The validation exercises went really well. It gives the Soldiers, all the way down to the lowest level, an opportunity to visualize how much time we have," Fuss said. "It also gives them the opportunity to visualize how important it is to be ready at any given time."
The mock scenarios the platoon validated on were Soldiers suffering injuries in a vehicle rollover and an aircraft that was forced to make an emergency landing. During the aircraft portion of training, which was conducted in a nearby town in Kosovo, a crowd of locals gathered to watch the training, which added realism to the day's training.
"There were actually people gathering because they were curious about what we were doing," said Pfc. David I. Ness, another member of the platoon, from Fargo, N.D. "It was as close to real world as we could get."
| Date Taken: | 12.11.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 12.11.2009 10:12 |
| Story ID: | 42607 |
| Location: | KACANIK, ZZ |
| Web Views: | 216 |
| Downloads: | 175 |
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