Photo By Kimberly Hackbarth | Sgt. Shannon Tew, a squad leader with Company A, 1st Battalion, 38th Infantry...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – Earning a seven-sixteenths by 3-inch piece of metal displaying a musket and a blue backdrop may not seem significant, but to infantrymen, the Expert Infantryman Badge is considered a career validation.
Soldiers with 4th Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division were the first Stryker brigade on JBLM to use the revised EIB testing standards April 25-29 on training areas here.
Sgt. 1st Class Chad Smith, a platoon sergeant with Company C, 4th Battalion, 9th Infantry Regiment, graded soldiers striving for what is considered a must-have accoutrement for any infantryman.
“In old terms, it was always called the ‘mark of a man’,” said Smith. “They’ve gone above and beyond their peers to prove that they excel in their career field.”
In 2000, while stationed in Hawaii, a young specialist Smith proved the mastery of his skills and earned his EIB, one of only 26 of the 700 soldiers in his battalion to do so.
Before the test’s alterations, soldiers had fewer opportunities to participate in the then month-long test for the badge due to years of global conflict and shorter time in garrison.
Master Sgt. Eric Chastain, the brigade’s EIB testing non-commissioned officer in charge, agreed.
“We’ve been engaged in constant combat since Sept. 11,” Chastain said. “During this time, EIB took the backseat.”
EIB committee members at Fort Benning, Ga., took those factors into account and attempted to create a test that would fit between repeated deployments and added updated combat-related situations.
The outcome is a 12-day process and requires less time, personnel, and resources.
Following the new test standards, soldiers had seven days to train on required tasks and five days of testing.
On first day of the test, EIB candidates took an Army Physical Fitness Test and had to score 75 points or higher in each event in order to move on to the next day.
Over the next three days, soldiers ran through three lanes: urban, patrol and traffic control point. Each lane had 10 tasks including moving under direct fire, engaging an enemy target with a grenade, providing first aid to a simulated casualty, and one decision task which had the soldier applying critical thinking while performing their mission. They also had to pass a day and night land navigation course separate from the lanes.
Chastain noted that there is an added level of stress since Soldiers had to take on multiple tasks throughout the lanes as opposed to the focusing on one at a time at individual stations like in the previous test.
This, he says, affects not only the candidates, but the test graders as well.
“(Before,) graders only mastered one task,” Chastain explained. “Now that grader has to know 10 different tasks and master them.”
If a soldier is deemed a “no-go” on a task, he does not have the option to retest like the old standards allowed.
“EIB is now all outcome-based training compared to individual tasks with specific performance measures for those tasks,” Smith, a St. Paul, Minn., native, said.
On the final day of testing, the soldiers who are left set off to complete a 12-mile foot march in less than three hours.
For Soldiers, such as Chastain, who earned his EIB in 1997 in Korea, there’s something that makes earning an EIB even more highly regarded – being a “True Blue” EIB holder.
“True Blue” means a Soldier completed every task without a “no-go,” thus every “go” box on his score sheet has a blue mark all the way down the page.
First Lt. John Dibble, a platoon leader with B Co., 1st Bn., 38th Inf. Regt., was one of 16 Soldiers to be “True Blue” badge holders.
“I was just trying to set an example for my guys,” the Selkirk, N.Y., native said.
Even after accomplishing so much throughout testing, it was his soldiers he was most proud of.
“My guys worked hard,” Dibble said proudly, stating that six of the soldiers in his platoon earned their badges.
While some candidates celebrated their success with high-fives and hugs, one Soldier took it as an opportunity to continue his service in the infantry.
After crossing the finish line in two hours, 25 minutes, and 34 seconds, Sgt. Shannon Tew had his reenlistment ceremony.
“I’m proud of what I’m doing right now,” said the infantryman from Fortuna, Calif. “I knew I was going to get my EIB.”
Out of 742 soldiers, 167 earned their EIBs.
| Date Taken: | 04.29.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 04.29.2011 19:23 |
| Story ID: | 69603 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 975 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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