Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Mary Katzenberger | Horizontal construction engineers with Company A, 4-3 Brigade Special Troops...... read more read more
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FORT STEWART, Ga. – Spc. Christopher P. Doty said he was first introduced to construction when he was a teenager.
The horizontal construction engineer, assigned to Company A, 4-3 Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 3rd Infantry Division, said he helped his father, John Doty, and some of his father’s friends build a log cabin in the woods somewhere in the upper peninsula of Michigan.
Doty said the experience showed him how much he enjoyed working with his hands, so choosing an engineering career field in the Army was a natural choice.
Doty is one of several horizontal construction engineers from the light equipment section who put their construction skills to use, April 18, for Habitat for Humanity to assist with the on-going construction of a single-family, four-bedroom home in Savannah, Ga.
The soldiers assisted other volunteers with lifting, emplacing and securing the supporting structures of the home’s roof. In the afternoon the soldiers also traveled to another Habitat for Humanity site to lay four pallets of sod in the yard of a completed house to be signed over to the owner the following day.
Staff Sgt. Carlois P. R. Sullivan, the light equipment section sergeant, said the daylong mission knocked out two birds with one stone.
“The actual purpose is to give us on-the-job training and to improve skills we already have in this field,” Sullivan said. “It’s also a good way to help out the community [and] do something good for the people around us.”
Sullivan said his section has been put on a different schedule than the rest of the company and that he and his soldiers will continue to volunteer with Habitat for Humanity on a weekly basis. The section sergeant said the mix of training and volunteering will help prepare his soldiers for any construction missions that may arise in the future.
“We’ll probably [volunteer] until they run out of houses they need built or until we leave,” said Sullivan.
Spc. Jeffrey A. Kipp, a native of Yatesville, Ga., said his chain of command has the right idea letting him and fellow horizontal construction engineers volunteer on construction sites for Habitat for Humanity. Kipp said more often than not, out of the necessity of the mission at hand, he and his battle buddies are usually relegated to training on combat engineering tasks rather than construction tasks.
“As engineers [we’re] supposed to be able to build rather than always tear down,” Kipp said. “This does actually pertain to our job. We’re equipment operators but we still build stuff.”
Kip said it feels good to work within his field with his fellow soldiers.
“It’s definitely a team builder,” he said. “We have good platoon cohesion going on.”
| Date Taken: | 04.23.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 04.24.2012 13:35 |
| Story ID: | 87248 |
| Location: | FORT STEWART, GEORGIA, US |
| Web Views: | 86 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
This work, ‘Vanguard’ horizontal construction engineers hone skills, help community, by SFC Mary Katzenberger, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
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