Photo By Scott Sturkol | Training operations for the 86th Training Division’s Combat Support Training...... read more read more
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More than 6,000 service members descended upon Fort McCoy at the beginning of August 2024 to train and build their Soldier skills in the 86th Training Division’s Combat Support Training Exercise (CSTX) 86-24-02 from Aug. 3-17 at Fort McCoy.
The 86th Training Division, a tenant organization at Fort McCoy, conducts a CSTX annually at the installation.
In a video about CSTX 86-24-02 by Staff Sgt. Samuel Conrad with the 326th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment at https://www.dvidshub.net/video/934058/86th-training-division-conducts-cstx-24-02, Col. David Nash, deputy commander of the 86th Training Division, discusses how the exercise is unique.
“A Combat Support Training Exercise, or CSTX, is the Army Reserve’s last fully evaluated — externally evaluated — collective training exercise. It is to validate that units are ready to go into their available year into a (Forces Command) ready pool of units that could be picked to deploy worldwide. The CSTX is the Army Reserve’s equivalent of a combat training center (CTC).
“A lot of these units don’t get the opportunity to go to a CTC because the CTC is built for really that brigade combat team forward and … maybe a division construct. At echelon, in the size that these units are, they really need a different exercise design to get after all of their individual trading objectives at the same time, forcing them to work together across organizations to develop the relationships to get after how integrated sustainment, the casualty evacuation, and replacement process works.”
Units like the 652nd Multi-Role Bridge Company were a unique addition to the exercise. The unit completed a training event on the Mississippi River at Fountain City, Wis. They also trained on Big Sandy Lake on Fort McCoy’s South Post where the lake has special areas set up so units can do this exact kind of training.
The 652nd has Soldiers in one of the Army’s most unique specialties (MOS), too — 12C, bridge crewmember. According to the Army job description for the MOS, as a bridge crewmember, “you’ll help construct bridges and rafts to help Soldiers cross rough terrain, bodies of water, and barriers they might encounter in the field. You’ll help create floating bridges and rafts from a boat as well as help combat engineers create safe crossings on land by building structures or demolishing obstacles.”
Another unit present in the exercise was the 5th Battalion, 159th General Support Aviation Battalion of Fort Eustis, Va., that brought UH-60 Black Hawk and CH-47 Chinook helicopters to the training.
The helicopters and their crews ferried troops all over Fort McCoy’s 60,000-acre space, and more. They even supported the 652nd in some of their training with building bridges.
The thousands of troops also set up for training at several installation training areas to include tactical training bases, Logistical Staging Area-Freedom, Young Air Assault Strip, and even training spaces within the woods throughout North Post and South Post.
“The CSTX is really one of the best ways to try to test out the concepts of contested logistics,” Nash said in the video by Conrad. “There is no exercise like this.”
An added bonus was the support of Army engineer units completing troop projects at the installation during CSTX. Fort McCoy’s Troop Project Coordinator Larry Morrow said engineers helped get a lot of work done in a short amount of time.
Projects completed included replacing 220 feet of sidewalk on the cantonment area, improving the tubing hill at Whitetail Ridge Ski Area, trail improvement of a training area, constructing a building at one of the training areas, residing buildings and fixing fans in buildings, pouring concrete walls at a demolition range, and plumbers from engineer units working with a Fort McCoy contractor.
Morrow has always said that having troop projects completed in post is a “win-win” for everyone involved. “If we didn’t have these projects, many of these engineer troops wouldn’t get the training they need, and the installation wouldn’t benefit from the work they do to improve Fort McCoy training ranges and quality-of-life programs,” he said.
Spc. Jacob Province with the 702nd Engineer Company of Johnson City, Tenn., said CSTX was very useful training for him and his unit.
“CSTX is a training exercise that shows not only how well your company operates as a whole, but also how well you collaborate with other units in a large-scale combat scenario,” Province said. “I believe we did a great job as a whole, although there were some communication and logistic issues out of our control. The 702nd has very knowledgeable NCOs and officers who work great together. Being Soldier skills or MOS knowledge, I think we are a very well-rounded unit. We knew what was expected of us and knew how to get in and get it done. Essayons.”
Early in the exercise, Maj. Gen. Robert D. Harter, a lieutenant general selectee and the newly selected Chief of the Army Reserve and commanding general of U.S. Army Reserve Command, visited Fort McCoy and the exercise from Aug. 7-9.
Command Sgt. Maj. Gregory Betty, the Army Reserve’s command sergeant major, also visited the exercise around the same time as Harter. Other distinguished visitors were also present throughout the exercise.
On Aug. 8, Harter spent a large amount of time in the field seeing Army Reserve Soldiers in action building their Warrior skills, honing their craft, and more. He also wrote about that in a Facebook post.
“I took a tour today of the operations at the CSTX on (Fort McCoy),” the post states. “It was motivating to see so many young Soldiers hone their craft from our engineers and MPs (military police) to our our sustainers keeping the exercise going 24 hours a day!”
Now looking to the future, determining the level of success from the exercise will be done as it always has been done by planners — by analyzing how the exercise best met its goals, and more.
Fort McCoy’s 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 Facebook by searching “ftmccoy,” on Flickr at https://www.flickr.com/photos/fortmccoywi, and on X (formerly Twitter) by searching “usagmccoy.”
Also try downloading the My Army Post app to your smartphone and set “Fort McCoy” or another installation as your preferred base. Fort McCoy is also part of Army’s Installation Management Command where “We Are The Army’s Home.”
(Sgt. Haylee Smith, unit public affairs representative for 702nd Engineer Company, contributed to this article.)
| Date Taken: | 08.20.2024 |
| Date Posted: | 08.20.2024 14:56 |
| Story ID: | 479056 |
| Location: | FORT MCCOY, WISCONSIN, US |
| Web Views: | 927 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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