Photo By Scott Sturkol | Students and staff with the Unit Movement Officer Deployment Planning Course conduct...... read more read more
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More than a dozen students in the Unit Movement Officer Deployment Planning Course learned about all aspects of transporting military equipment, vehicles, goods, and more in August during 10 days of training.
The course, taught by the 426th Regional Training Institute/Wisconsin Military Academy of the Wisconsin National Guard, a Fort McCoy tenant organization, provides 80 hours overall of training.
“Our overall mission is that we train selected noncommissioned officers, officers, and warrant officers,” said course instructor Staff Sgt. Alexander Kilbane with the 426th. “It doesn’t matter if they are active duty, National Guard, or Reserve. We teach them how to move or transport any of their unit’s organic equipment, whether that’s by boat, by plane, by train, or by trucks to anywhere in the world.
“And once they are done with our class, then they are certified to conduct training or movement related operations,” Kilbane said.
The teaching of the course also goes regularly with any time a unit has a part in a rail movement at Fort McCoy, which in recent years there has been many. Kilbane’s team has supported teaching Army transportation companies, engineer companies, and more. And that has included troops from not just the Wisconsin National Guard but from other states as well.
And, to complete their course training, Kilbane said they work regularly with the Fort McCoy Logistics Readiness Center (LRC) team.
“We coordinate with the LRC through their unit movements team every single month — multiple times a month,” Kilbane said. “We also go into their building and go beyond rail and (complete) pallet mock-ups.”
Kilbane said LRC personnel also support the course as guest speakers to give a different perspective on transportation subjects as well.
Another aspect Kilbane said is helpful as well is a location on the installation, a rarely used rail-loading spur near building 50 on post, that offers great training for students. The area has a loading ramp and is set up with railcars and a locomotive.
“It’s awesome … it’s excellent,” Kilbane said. “I know a lot of other locations around the country that teach our course, and they use mock-ups. … It’s nice to have that … mostly non-used spur that helps provide a reliable training experience. I think it really helps for the students to also get out there and see a truck on a railcar instead of some mock-up. They actually get to go out there and tie a truck to a train. The students seem to love it.”
Fort McCoy is one of few installations Armywide that operates and supports Army-owned locomotives and conducts rail operations in the level like it does. And in 2022, Fort McCoy supported three major rail movements for units that Kilbane’s team also supported.
During those three movements, the Fort McCoy rail operations support team with LRC helped load and move 315 pieces of equipment on 116 railcars that was approximately the equivalent of 4,311 short tons of cargo. Military units trained and supported were the 485th Engineer Company, 411th Engineer Company, and 107th Support Maintenance Company, said Installation Transportation Officer Douglas “Terry” Altman with the LRC Transportation Division.
Kilbane said many people also might not think of the importance of the logistical abilities of the mobility side of the Army when it comes to winning wars, but it’s just as important.
“If you think of the Army, your brain might focus in on the Soldiers, the fight, and the guns,” Kilbane said. “But none of that can happen if you think of the old adage — ‘bullets can’t fly without supply.’ And that’s true for the entire logistics chain.
“Knowing the sustainment, and the logistics, and the importance of it is like the backbone,” Kilbane said. “If you don’t have that, there is no bullets to fly at enemies … there’s no getting your people and equipment to the places where they need to be.”
Learn more about the Wisconsin Military Academy and the 426th by visiting https://ng.wi.gov/about/wiarng/426rti.
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: | 08.30.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 08.30.2023 18:28 |
| Story ID: | 452494 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 573 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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