Army takes part in LA Fleet Week

LOS ANGELES — Soldiers from the National Training Center, Fort Irwin and Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion participated in Los Angeles Fleet Week May 26-29, in Los Angeles, California.

LA Fleet Week is an annual event held Memorial Day weekend with events including tours of active duty ships, military vehicle and equipment displays, live entertainment, a dodgeball competition and a culinary cook-off competition.

Capt. Stephan Negron, a company commander with the Los Angeles Recruiting Battalion, attended Fleet Week.

“We saw this as an opportunity to engage with the local community [and] we’re thankful that the Navy and Marines allowed us to come here and be part of this event,” said Negron.

Fleet Week is one of the leading events for the year for recruiting because it allows the public to interact with military branches, Negron said.

“This is just one of those events that we’re around our peers, we’re around different branches [of the military], and military-friendly individuals come here, so we try to capitalize on that,” he said. “For the Army, specifically, we need people that want to join and that want to be part of our team, and if we’re not out here providing that information, nobody’s going to get the message.”

The LA Recruiting Battalion invited Soldiers from Fort Irwin, including Sgt. Maj. Sedrick Brown, the operations sergeant major for the National Training Center, to set up a military static display that included a UH-60 Black Hawk, a joint light tactical vehicle, an explosive ordnance disposal bomb suit and robot and other vehicles and equipment.

“We come down and we show off our vehicles and equipment and our personnel and we take part in some of the events and we’re just out here to have a good time and to mingle with [the LA community] and showcase what we have and what we can do,” said Brown.

Attending Fleet Week allows the community to better understand the capabilities of Fort Irwin and the Army, Brown said.

“We like to participate [in events like Fleet Week] just to let our civilian counterparts know what we bring to the table, so they can have that understanding of how we support them and having their support as well and coming together to ensure that we’re representing the Army and we’re representing our armed forces as a whole,” Brown said.

U.S. Army Soldiers from Fort Irwin won first place in the dodgeball competition against teams from several other military branches, which also can impact the community’s view of the military, Brown said.

“When the community sees us participate, when they see us join in, they can see what we represent,” Brown said. “They can see our physical toughness, they can see our drive and the spectators on the side clapping motivate us to keep going, which gives us that fighting spirit.”

Brown recognized that leaving a positive impression on the community is important.

“I hope that the community can see and they can understand that we are America’s fighting force and we’re representing something bigger than ourselves,” Brown said. “We’re here to ensure that they can see that we are taking our job seriously and that we are the protection for this nation, whenever that time is called for us to do so.”

Negron said for those who couldn’t attend Fleet Week, but are interested in the Army, the LA Recruiting Battalion is hosting a Grad Bash to celebrate recent graduates in the LA area June 16 from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at Autry Museum of the American West in LA.