JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. - Anyone who has watched a war movie has likely seen some deviation of a scene where a Soldier kicks in a door and his team rushes in and takes out the bad guys.
While it may be dramatized for the movies, clearing a room is an important job for Soldiers and requires precision, communication and a lot of practice.
As part of their room-clearing training, Soldiers with 2nd Battalion, 3rd Infantry Regiment, 3-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team, spent nearly a week at a shoot house on Joint Base Lewis-McChord, honing their skills, which culminated in an air assault and house clearing mission Dec. 11.
Like so much of what Soldiers do, the training took place in a crawl, walk, run progression, meaning the Soldiers started out with absolute basics, in this case weapons qualification.
They followed with both day and night room clearing missions beginning with one team clearing one room with blank ammunition and moving up to multiple teams clearing an entire shoot house with live rounds.
"As an infantryman, I would say that is one of the basic fundamentals, because given any mission set, no matter what you're doing whether you're clearing a village, clearing a bunker or clearing a trench, you want to have the fundamentals to clear it," said Sgt. Justin Chairez, a Tracy, Calif., native and team leader with 2nd Bn., 3rd Inf. Regt.
Chairez has deployed twice, once to Afghanistan and once to Iraq. He said that entering and clearing rooms was an essential task on both deployments.
"No matter what we've done as long as I've been in, you always end up going to that," Chairez said.
Chairez especially appreciated the realism of this training. He said that they spent long hours conducting room clearing during both day and night conditions, which simulated some of the experiences of his deployments.
"It provides that realism and understanding," Chairez said. "You're not going to get that perfect situation where you're well rested, have perfect graphics for the objective you are going to hit, and know everything about it. Sometimes you're going to roll up to the objective, have a general idea and have to learn on the fly and move through the building on the fly. That comes down to having those fundamentals, so that no matter what gets thrown at you...you can rely on those basic fundamentals."
The realism kicked up another notch when the Soldiers began using live rounds to clear simulated enemy targets in the shoot house.
"Once you take off that blank firing adapter and do the live rounds it gets a little bit more real for those new guys who haven't done it," Chairez said. "They get a better understanding of 'Alright, I need to watch my muzzle awareness, I need to watch where I'm pointing my weapon, I need to think about if I shoot though this wall the effects it is going to have if another team is too far ahead."
All this training led up to an air assault mission in which Soldiers were tasked to fly aboard UH-60 helicopters and be dropped of at a remote location. They then foot marched through a heavily forested area before assaulting their objective and clearing the shoot house of simulated enemies.
"There's a lot of guys who've never been on a helicopter," Chairez said.
Much of what 3-2 SBCT does is related to their mission with the Stryker vehicle platform, which is a fast moving armored vehicle that can be used to ferry combat arms Soldiers onto the front lines. However, being attached to a Stryker unit doesn't preclude 3-2 SBCT Soldiers from being tasked to hop on a helicopter and conduct an air assault with or without their Stryker vehicles.
"From my experience in both Iraq and Afghanistan, it doesn't matter if you're airborne, light, heavy or air assault, if the mission set comes down and they determine that you guys are going to utilize that craft then you are going to utilize that craft," Chairez said. "I think it's just to provide that overall experience. Experience is key in our line of work."
For the Soldiers who have never been on a helicopter before this training, it was an eye-opening experience.
"It's definitely a bit of a rush, especially since I haven't done it before," said Pfc. Adrian Castillo, a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., native and team leader with 2nd Bn., 3rd Inf. Regt. "It all happens really quickly."
Aside from the helicopter flight, Castillo said the entirety of the room clearing training served to help his team become a better functioning unit.
"It's very important for the team to work as one, to know where everyone is at so that we can clear the room effectively and efficiently," Castillo said. "I think everybody learned something today. There is definitely a lot of moving pieces and for everything to work smoothly we all have got to work together and be on the same page."
Although the air assault portion of the training might have stolen the show, the nearly week-long room clearing training ensured that the 3-2 SBCT Soldiers are more prepared than ever to take on any mission they are given, whether it be on the open battlefield or in the tight confines of a city, moving from house to house and room to room.
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