Fort Sill Soldiers practice muddy recoveries

FORT SILL, Okla. (Nov. 6, 2014) -- Soldiers from 66th Forward Support Company "Renegades," trained on maintenance operations Oct. 27-29, to ensure they could recover a broke down or stuck vehicle anytime, anywhere and under any condition.

The training touched on each step of recovery from receiving the call of a downed vehicle, to arriving on scene and assessing the situation, and finally performing the vehicle recovery. The training enhanced the Renegades ability to support the battalion during field operations.

"(It is important) our Soldiers get this time to train and become technically proficient in their jobs so that they are comfortable when it comes time to perform their jobs in a deployed environment," said Sgt. Kevin Ward, B Battery maintenance support team noncommissioned officer in charge.

To prepare for their practical exercise, the maintenance Soldiers spent the first day in the classroom learning about the vehicles they use for recovery operations, their capabilities and limitations, and standard operating procedures.

Two days of field training followed classroom instruction providing Soldiers time to test lessons learned. To challenge the Soldiers and provide a realistic training scenario, 66th FSC leaders created a mire pit of deep mud and water up to Soldiers' knees.

Leaders then drove a High Mobility Multi-purpose Wheeled Vehicle into the middle of the quagmire and got stuck. Then, two members of the maintenance team walked from a prepositioned M984 wrecker toward the stuck vehicle. Next, they connected tow rings to the trapped vehicle. Four to six other Soldiers then walked a cable from the wrecker to hook up the vehicle slogging through the morass carrying and hooking up the heavy recovery chains tested the physical endurance and knowledge of the Renegades.

Walking through the muddy water, working with wet and slippery gloves, and searching for equipment that would fall into the water was the type of environment unit leaders wanted to create. Every Renegade Soldier persevered and completed the tasked they were assigned.

"I think what we've done has really helped me learn how to do my job. This is some of the best training I've ever done," said Pvt. Kristopher McLellan, a radio and communications security repairer.

Maintenance operations will be a significant factor in the upcoming months. The battalion will be going to the field frequently in inclement weather conditions. The maintenance training helped ensure the company could successfully complete recovery operations.

"I'm really glad that our Soldiers were excited to get out there and learn and perform. We have a lot of equipment as an FSC, and it was nice getting to see it being used for what it was intended to do," said Capt. David Bjork, 66th FSC commander.

The captain expressed his appreciation for the great job his NCOs did leading their Soldiers through the valuable and realistic training.

No Army training is complete without some spirited competition. Each maintenance sustainment team picked junior enlisted Soldiers to demonstrate what they had learned from the training. In front of their peers and superiors, they were then required to recover a vehicle with minimal guidance.

Pfc. Elizabeth True, power generator mechanic, was one such Soldier selected for the competition.

"I really enjoyed being a team leader and I learned that I need to learn to use my command voice to get everyone's attention," True said.