Story by 2nd Lt. Trevor Foote, 95th Engineer Company, 84th Engineer Battalion, 130th Engineer Brigade, 8th Theater Sustainment Command
SCHOFIELD BARRACKS, Hawaii - The soldiers of 4th Platoon, 95th Engineer Company (Clearance), 84th Engineer Battalion, 130th Engineer Brigade conducted earth-moving operations Oct. 3 and 4 at the south range engineering training area on Schofield Barracks, Hawaii.
This event served to familiarize the soldiers with the specific version of T9 Dozers in the 95th Engineer Company's arsenal. It also served to teach them how to work in equipment teams to efficiently complete a mission.
In this training event, the soldiers worked in dozer teams in order to create rectangular tank ditches.
They also learned all the steps necessary to get the equipment from one location to another, from binding the dozers to the trailers, to coupling the tractors and trailers.
The skills learned during this range will serve as the foundation from which the soldiers will expand their abilities to utilize various earth-moving equipment, and to complete a variety of engineering tasks in future training events.
While soldiers were not training on the dozers, concurrent training was done teaching them how to get the dozers on to the trailers, securing them, and then coupling the trailers to the 916 tractors to transport them.
The soldiers learned a great deal about loading equipment and many realized just as Pfc. Eric La Cuesta, heavy equipment operator with the 95th Engineer Company, found out, "It's not as easy as it looks."
"Winching a trailer onto a 916," he continued, "there's a lot of coordination required."
Most soldiers in 4th Platoon came into this training with very little, to no equipment operating time outside of their advanced individual training.
"This opportunity provided a great experience for team leaders to help coach and mentor the new soldiers coming straight out of AIT," said Spc. Kouadio Signo, a team leader with the 2nd Squad, 4th Platoon.
All came out of the training with a better understanding of the equipments' capabilities as well as their individual ability to utilize those capabilities to complete the mission, he said.
This training event was overall, a great foundation building experience and a complete success.
Soldiers gained a strong foundation on operating the version of the T9 Dozers allotted to the 95th Engineer Company, as well as learned how to coordinate with one another within a dozer team to increase output efficiency while, maintaining safety as paramount.
Due to this training, the "Equipment Platoon" of 95th Engineer Company is now better prepared to support the company's mission.
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