Officers from 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team competed in the ‘Iron 6′ PT Challenge May 26 on Camp Casey and Hovey. The competition consisted of various strength and endurance events to see which officers could keep up with the brigade commander, Col. Thomas C. Graves, throughout the entire challenge.

Sgt. Maximo Dejesus and Pfc. William R. Carman from A Co., 302nd BSB, run through the blank fire session of the ‘live-fire’ exercise at Apache Range. Soldiers went through a ‘crawl, walk, run’ phase before actually conducting the exercise with live rounds. Logistic soldiers from each of their respective companies left the range with more confidence in their weapon systems, communication between each other, as well as combat capabilities during the overall three day event.

]]> http://www.ironbde.com/2010/03/13/302nd-apache-range-live-fire/feed/ 2 http://www.ironbde.com/2010/03/03/sgt-langford-1hbct-best-warrior-competition/ http://www.ironbde.com/2010/03/03/sgt-langford-1hbct-best-warrior-competition/#comments Thu, 04 Mar 2010 06:04:33 +0000 admin http://www.ironbde.com/?p=1512

This is Sgt. Jeke M. Langford from B Battery, 1-15 Field Artilery Battalion. Wednesday the ‘Best Warrior Competition’ kicked off early in the morning as me as well as the other soldiers were motivated to begin. I was chosen from my battery to be in this event because I won our NCO quarter of the year board as well as our NCO of the year board. Overall, the competition was good, it gave us NCOs, soldiers, and KATUSAs an opportunity to showing our basic soldier skills as well as getting better at the skills with the numerous tasks we had to complete throughout the competition. This was beneficial to me because it gave me the opportunity to compete and bring out my competitive nature.

This is PFC Paul Holston here. Last Friday, cadets from the ROK Military Academy came to Camp Casey for a small demonstration from our own 1HBCT soldiers. They were shown vehicles such as the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, HMMWV, M1 Abrams, MLRS, as well as radars. Also, they went into our Combat Tactical Trainer Facility, also known as CCTT, where they were able to virtually ride tanks and simulate using various weapons. The cadets seemed really interested and excited as they were seeing how our Army uses these types of equipment for training, as well as laughing and having a good time with the U.S. soldiers.

This is SSG Alex Gradiz from D Co., 2-9th Inf. The training at the “Hovey Cut” today was combined arms training, which allowed us tankers to work with our brothers in the infantry world as well as the engineers. I personally like working with other jobs in the Army. While operating a tank, it’s not often that I get to use the plow, but when i am able to drop the plow it becomes a great opportunity to get the other soldiers to learn how to plow. It’s a good lesson on learning how to use it, what needs to be done and what its actually used for in these types of situations. I also got a chance to work with the engineers to receive the battle drill for breaching during the exercise at Sueng Ji Gol Village. Part of the breaching element for my job is to clear the lane with the plow to allow the other vehicles behind to come through. Overall, this was great training for me as well as my soldiers.

Soldiers from the ROK Army were training on Camp Hovey today. 2LT Kim, Han Byul said,”My soldiers have never trained in an urban environment before. We were excited about doing something new during this exercise.This has been a great experience for all of us and we’ll never forget the people we’ve met here.”

This is PFC Scott Cherry here from HHC, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team.We’ve been conducting good training during this ‘Iron Focus’ exercise as far as the tasks at hand for our part. Being able to setup the TOC, the Tactical Operations Center, and TAC, the Technical Assistance Center,  not only from the outside, but the inside in combat speed is no easy task, especially when jumping to different locations and having to accomplish this in a short time span. This is just one of the other few tasks I do besides working inside the TOC . For those in my position who have yet to deploy to an actual combat area, this is a good taste of what is to come should they ever be in that type of environment. The three main areas to learn from this are good communication, teamwork, and most importantly safety. You want to make sure everybody is tracking the same game plan, being able to work together, and overall making sure no one gets hurt.

My name is PV2 Joseph Guerra from 2-9th Infantry. We’ve been training with the ROK Soldiers that have been attached to us for the past couple days now as part of the ‘Iron Focus’ exercise, teaching them the basics up until the big mission that’s going to be happening in the next couple days. We’ve been teaching them our tactics, movements, battle drills, as well as some first aid.

What I’ve seen during my time training with the ROK Soldiers is that they are just like us, they have a sort of brotherhood just like we do. They do the same job, have the same cohesion we have with our battle buddies, and share that with us. We’ve actually bonded together, had some laughs, and had some fun.

1st tank gunnery from IRON BDE on Vimeo.

I am Senior Katusa SGT Choi from C Co., 1st Battalion, 72nd Armor Regiment. My First Sergeant gave me a sweet mission, to take some pictures.  I did not expect to go on a winter gunnery. We usually come to the Korean Training Center in April and October. The fog is terrible so it’s hard to shoot for screen. The shooting schedule was delayed, however, we finally finished table VIII.

I’ve already went through gunnery two times as a tank loader. When I was a tanker, I didn’t realize how tankers looked from the outside. I was always busy shooting and doing maintenance.

Here are some pictures from the winter gunnery. Now, I think you can imagine what it was like by looking at these pictures. You don’t have to be a tanker. We do! You can just enjoy the pictures. Go Army!