Photo By Scott Sturkol | An Army Reserve Soldier with the 411th Engineer Company of the Rear Detachment...... read more read more
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Soldiers with the Rear Detachment of the Army Reserve’s 411th Engineer Company of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, were at Fort McCoy in June to support several troop projects, but completed one large road-building project.
The project work for the road 411th Soldiers graded and graveled is in an area of land near the old Gate 20 and Logistical Support Area Liberty and the cantonment area fence, said Troop Projects Coordinator Larry Morrow with the Fort McCoy Directorate of Public Works (DPW).
The overall site plan for that area is to make it into a base operations support site for installation service contractors, such as facility maintenance, roads and grounds, solid waste, custodial, pest management, and more, Morrow said. This road, now fully graveled and allowing full access to the site, will make work on the ongoing site project go even faster.
Chief Warrant Officer 2 Joshua Eaton with the 411th said his small contingent of Soldiers were supporting the 389th Engineer Company at the installation on projects but completed the road project with their engineer Soldiers of which many were new to the unit.
“We're here in conjunction with one of our sister units, the 389th, and we're doing some troop projects,” Eaton said. “We were able to get a lot of our newer Soldiers fresh out of advanced individual training some valuable stick time. We've got three pieces of equipment — we’ve been running a road grader, a loader, and a 10-ton dump truck which has been giving them some valuable experience.”
Morrow has said repeatedly that troop projects are a “win-win” situation because Fort McCoy gets projects completed and the troops get the valuable training they need in their respective Army career fields.
Eaton agreed.
“Any time you can fill the Soldier’s day with something meaningful, I think it has a huge impact on their morale and sense of duty as well and to give them that experience,” Eaton said. “So, for them to have an opportunity to come out and do something like this, it might be the only time they get to touch equipment throughout the year. This is vital to our success down the road in getting these guys experience and getting them confident with their number one resource — that equipment.”
A majority of the 411th Engineer Company is currently serving on an overseas deployment, Eaton said. He said whether it’s supporting stateside or overseas, Army Reserve engineer Soldiers bring unique skill sets to the fight. He mentioned an example.
“We bring a versatility,” Eaton said. “With our sister company, the 389th, this is a prime example. We’ve got two master electricians and a lot of times you just don't have that. And I think in our realm as well, we've got people who do this work on a full-time basis, and they bring such a knowledge and versatility that you don't always get anywhere else.”
Units like the 411th have Soldiers with career fields like the horizontal construction engineer with the military occupational specialty identifier of 12N. According to the job description for this field at https://www.goarmy.com/careers-and-jobs/career-match/mechanics-engineering/design-develop/12n-horizontal-construction-engineer.html, these Soldiers “operate heavy construction equipment like bulldozers, tractors, backhoes, cranes, excavators, and road graders to help pave the way for fellow Soldiers and to make room for construction projects.” Learn more at https://www.goarmy.com.
And now with the road work done at the project site, other units can build on what the 411th Soldiers have completed, Morrow said.
“If we didn’t have these projects, many troops wouldn’t get the training they need, and the post wouldn’t benefit from the work they do to improve Fort McCoy training ranges and quality-of-life programs,” Morrow has said about these projects in past articles.
Learn more about the Army Reserve by visiting https://www.usar.army.mil.
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 the Defense Visual Information Distribution System at https://www.dvidshub.net/fmpao, 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: | 06.20.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.20.2023 16:16 |
| Story ID: | 447557 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Hometown: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 585 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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