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By: Staff Sgt. Nathaniel G. Johnson
CAMP ADDER, Iraq — The soldiers of 3rd Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Advise and Assist Brigade, 4th Infantry Division, have filled many roles during Operation Iraqi Freedom 10-11 and Operation New Dawn in southern Iraq, becoming jacks-of-all-trades.
Known as the Phoenix Battalion, it is traditionally a combat support battalion which brings essential capabilities to the brigade commander’s tool kit, such as unmanned aircraft, intelligence gathering, high tech communications and military police.
“The STB is the enabler in just about everything the brigade accomplishes. We have [military occupational specialties] from across the entire board that come together to support the brigade headquarters in command and control, intelligence, and view of the battlefield,” said Maj. Brian North, executive officer, 3rd STB.
The battalion’s signal company is responsible for ensuring that all units can communicate, operating voice and data communication hubs that support several tactical operations centers.
“We have a [hub] here on Camp Adder that supports the brigade TOC, as well as provides tactical connectivity to the STB’s TOC, 3-29 Field Artillery’s TOC and the 64th BSB’s TOC,” said Capt. Nicole Mounts, commander, Company B, of Melothian, Texas.
Each of the brigade’s bases has complex communications equipment, requiring a signal soldier to operate and maintain it. At one time, according to Mounts, soldiers from Company B were spread across 11 bases.
Spc. Travis Bushong, a signal support system specialist, from Springfield Mo., was responsible for operating the communications equipment at JSS Um Sa’ah. Since there weren’t any computer automations soldiers there, he said he had to perform that job as well, which required him to learn a new skill set.
Bushong said that they had to learn how to manage all the different computer administrator tasks as well as a variety of force protection tasks.
“I pulled guard on a daily basis, be it monitoring [security] cameras or manning a guard tower with a M240 bravo machine gun,” he said.
Bushong’s story is not unique in the STB. The same story is being told throughout the entire battalion.
Phoenix soldiers are responsible for guarding the entry control points and manning the base defense operations center, or BDOC, at Camp Adder. They also operate aerostats, or blimps with cameras, at various camps, and have served as a maneuver battalion, securing the area around Camp Bucca, near the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr.
As forces draw down across Iraq, 3rd AAB’s area of responsibility has inevitably increased, and in response, the battalion received the additional missions.
“One of the philosophies that Lt. Col. Edwards has is that we take things off of the brigade’s plate. We look for missions that we can accomplish with our forces that the brigade doesn’t have to deal with, like base defense for COB Adder,” said North.
Headquarters and Headquarters Company has shouldered the load of most of the additional missions. According to Capt. Michael Myers, HHC commander, there are cooks and medics running the entry control points and mechanics operating the aerostat.
Myers said it was challenging to find the right soldiers to accomplish these additional missions. He said matching the right people to the right jobs was the key to success.
“In a lot of ways it made sense to use the mechanics to operate the aerostat because sometimes it has mechanical issues, and these guys can fix it,” said Myers, a native of Greenville, Ohio.
Operating the BDOC is another significant mission that the battalion is responsible for and is important to force protection.
“The BDOC is the nerve center of Camp Adder. We are able to see all angles of the perimeter, we are able to see on the camp and off the camp, and we have live feed from the Shadow [unmanned aerial vehicle]. Nothing happens on Adder without us knowing about it,” said 2nd Lt. Jeremy Combs, BDOC battle captain, from Dalton, Ind.
While base security is the STB’s responsibility, the 3rd Battalion, 29th Field Artillery Regiment is responsible for the area outside of Camp Adder. Because of this, the two battalions have developed a close operational relationship that has led to the capture of looters who have attempted to gain access to the base.
“Working with 3-29 has been great. If we have an incident outside the COB we call them, and they’re right on it,” said Staff Sgt. Jeffery Carlson, BDOC battle noncommissioned officer, from Blaine, Minn. “When the looters tried to breach the perimeter, we contacted 3-29. They had their ready platoon out there, they had an air weapons team out there, and we had the live feed from the UAV. Between our command and control and 3-29’s action, we were able to capture them.”
Unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, operations are a mission that Company A executes on Camps Adder and Garry Owen.
“What we do is fly real-time operations with the shadow system,” said1st Lt. Cory Riddick, UAV platoon leader. “This deployment we have flown over 4,000 hours, and we have supported various missions, including counter IED and IDF.”
Riddick, a native of Hampton, Va., was assigned to 3rd Bn., 29th FA Reg., as an intelligence officer during the first half of the deployment, and has been on the receiving end of the STB’s support.
“For us in the intel world, it is amazing what this battalion has done, and I think that all of the intelligence shops in the brigade would say the same thing about the STB’s contributions, especially Alpha Company’s,” said Riddick.
The battalion’s largest mission was assuming responsibility of Camp Bucca near Umm Qasr. Myers said the battalion’s staff sections were cut in half when 40 soldiers went to Camp Bucca.
At Camp Bucca, the battalion received two additional companies and the task force was responsible for securing Camp Bucca and the area around Umm Qasr, as well as advising and assisting Iraqi security forces.
According to Sgt. Romina Silva, battalion intelligence sergeant, her section worked with the intelligence sections from the Iraqi army, Marines, navy and police.
“We were teaching them how to collect information and how to conduct briefs and debriefs and disseminate the information to their units,” said Silva. “We saw a lot of improvement in their abilities, especially in the upper echelons.”
Last December, the battalion turned Camp Bucca back over to the Iraqis as a commercialization development opportunity. According to North, Camp Bucca was the largest base closure in southern Iraq to date, and the first one in Iraq to be used for business development.
“The provincial government saw Bucca as an industrial base for commercial business operating in Umm Qasr, and ultimately a joint Iraqi-U.S. corporation took over responsibility of Bucca,” he said.
According to North, the industrial significance of Umm Qasr is that it is the main sea port in Iraq that facilitates the majority of Iraq’s imports.
The motto of this small and adaptive battalion is “Forged by Fire,” and its crest depicts a phoenix rising out of the flames. According to the battalion’s lineage, the motto and crest represent the unit’s ability to adapt from lessons learned in war.
Throughout the Phoenix Battalion, soldiers perform a wide variety of tasks, many of which were forged during this deployment.
“They’re soldiers first. Even though they are trained in specialty MOSs, they realize that their role as a soldier comes first,” said North. “Many of them got to do new and special things that they haven’t done on previous deployments. Anytime you get to try something new, it just makes for a little more interesting deployment.”
Phoenix soldiers are very aware, if not proud, that they’ve become jacks-of-all-trades during the last 10 months.
“We have handled this challenge, and I think that we could handle a challenge in Afghanistan, and I think that we would be as successful,” said Command Sgt. Maj. Leida Anderson. “I think that we have proven that the STB is capable of handling any mission anywhere at any time.”
| Date Taken: | 01.22.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.22.2011 06:17 |
| Story ID: | 63999 |
| Location: | CAMP ADDER, IQ |
| Web Views: | 277 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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