FORT SILL, Okla. -- Spc. Adrian Duvall will complete basic training boot camp for the second time in his life June 6.
His first boot camp happened shortly after graduating high school when he joined the U.S. Navy in 2003. Since that time, Duvall has gone through a lot.
"When I was in the Navy, I was a culinary specialist and served four years on the USS Theodore Roosevelt. I used that training to advance my life outside the military," said Duvall, who grew up in Cleveland.
"After I got out of the Navy, I went to college and got an associate's degree in criminal justice. Then I had an opportunity to buy into a restaurant in Cleveland as a partner with my cousin. And things went well for about two and a half years," he said.
That's when the bottom, or more specifically the roof fell in.
"A fire broke out in an apartment above us. We were in the restaurant at the time and smelled smoke but we didn't know the fire was in our building. Then we heard an explosion from a hot water tank upstairs and water started to gush into our restaurant, so we evacuated the building. When the water and ceiling collapsed into our restaurant, we lost about 80 percent of what we had in there," Duvall said.
After that, things were pretty rough for Duvall and his family. He talked it over with his wife and three daughters Amaya, 10; Arianna, 8; and Arielle, 7, about going back into the military.
"They were supportive of me going into the Army. This is my second boot camp experience and it is different from the past, but I am enjoying it so far," Duvall said. "I wanted to pick an MOS that would keep me farther behind the lines and give me a better chance of safely coming back to my family."
He arrived at Fort Sill in March of this year to go through Basic Combat Training (BCT), and then on to Advanced Individual Training (AIT).
"I'm a 25 Bravo, information technology specialist. I thought a lot about what MOS I should choose as I came back into the military and I felt like the 25B field would further my civilian life when I eventually leave the Army," Duvall said.
Last Friday Duvall's BCT class had one last major mission to complete - a simulated urban operations environment at Liberty City, where Soldiers faced different combat scenarios.
"The Soldiers are in full 'battle rattle' and they will be going through the urban scenarios here," said Staff Sgt. Marcel Gonzalez, assistant drill sergeant for 1st Platoon, D Battery, 1st Battalion, 40th Field Artillery. "We will have some of the other platoons set up as opposing forces and they will provide resistance as Duvall's squads navigate through Liberty City. Their objective this afternoon is to capture or kill what we call an HVT (high value target), and of course the HVT will have security and body guards, so the Soldiers' mission is to neutralize the bodyguards as best they can, and then capture or kill the HVT."
The scenario is as real as it can be, complete with pyrotechnics hand grenade and artillery simulators; blank rounds from M249 SAW (squad automatic weapons) and M240B machine guns; as well as smoke grenades for cover and concealment.
As a squad leader, Duvall was impressed with the realism.
"It puts you in a real-life battle scenario, with the smoke and flash bang grenades going off around you. You have to be able to communicate with your team and complete the task with all the noise and other things going off all around. Now we know what to expect when we do it again. It was pretty exciting and a lot of fun," Duvall said.
"Ever since the first day Duvall arrived he has taken charge and helped get the Soldiers in line and squared away. He knows what the standards are from being prior-service and understands what we are trying to do here in basic training. Even in formations, he will let the Soldiers know if they are getting out of control if there is not a drill sergeant around that they need to get things straight. He's been an all-around asset to 1st platoon ever since he has been here," Gonzalez said.
"I'm a reservist and I'm attached to a unit back in Ohio, so when I finish AIT, I will be working with computers at the combat training center there. A lot of systems in the combat environment work off of computer networks now, so the Army needs people to keep the systems clean, to make sure there are no viruses or cyber attacks that may invade the networks. I am looking forward to learning more about the internet technology field once I get to the AIT school, which I believe will be at Fort Gordon, Ga.," Duvall said.
"My battle-buddies did a good job of improvising on the fly and we executed it the way we were taught. Our platoon sergeants give us a lot of guidance based on their combat experiences but the bottom line is we have to know how to execute the mission on our own, because we can't stop every few minutes to ask them what we should do. We have some great leaders here at Fort Sill, training us for the missions ahead of us.," said Duvall. "That reflects the confidence that our drill sergeants and our battle buddies have in all of us as we reach the completion of our training cycle."
Duvall will graduate from BCT June 6.
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