FORT JACKSON, S.C. (May 8, 2014) -- Because of the nature of their chosen careers, Soldiers depend on each other every day to achieve whatever mission is at hand. For an installation such as Fort Jackson, though, that interdependence can sometimes lead to a lack of familiarity among post leaders.
Last week, Fort Jackson took steps to erase those boundaries by putting leaders in the field for a day for an event titled Victory Valhalla. A serious of mental and physical tasks were established at points around Weston Lake, with teams of five Soldiers having to solve puzzles and complete strenuous physical activities along the course.
To make things more challenging, the teams were made up of Soldiers who don't regularly work together.
Soldiers taking part in Victory Valhalla represented organizations such as the Basic Combat Training battalions, Advanced Individual Training units, DENTAC, MEDAC, Task Force Marshall and Post Headquarters.
"The intent behind today's event is to have a physically and mentally challenging event for people on the post in leadership positions so that they get to work with folks whom they don't ordinarily get to work with and build a greater rapport and ability to interact with other individuals across post," said Capt. Joseph Meyer, commander of Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Army Training Center.
Those activities ranged from the mundane, such as paddling a canoe across Lake Weston in full battle gear, to more bizarre tasks. Midway through the event, Soldiers were given piles of tires, rope, tarp and pipes and asked to use these items to build a cart.
Just to make things more interesting, some of these tires were almost flat.
"They're also going to have events like a litter carry," Meyer said. "They'll have to find land navigation points, and teams will be given two bicycles each and have to figure out how to move two bicycles with five people across a given area of terrain while finding land navigation points along the way."
Optional tasks were also part of the day's activities to give teams the opportunity to deduct time from the score. As with the day's other tasks, they ranged from ordinary (building a fire) to dramatic (a Tomahawk throw.)
In all, 40 Soldiers took part in Victory Valhalla.
Although team building exercises can be fun and engaging, they can ultimately be worthless if not planned with care.
Victory Valhalla had an added handicap in that it required certain level of secrecy during the two months it took to plan.
"The operations order that went out was purposefully vague," Meyer said. "We had to watch what information we gave out because we didn't want anybody to know what the events were or how long the course was, or even where it was."
He said organizers regularly met with the Fort Jackson operations officer and the post's chief of staff to make sure the day's events were both safe and practical. This required planners to alter the design of Victory Valhalla several times before the kickoff last Friday.
Some of those changes were more drastic than others.
"As the planning continued, the events changed and the course moved," Meyer said.
The first place team members were Brig. Gen Bradley Becker, Fort Jackson commanding general; Lt. Col. Scott Sonsalla, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment; Lt. Col. Dennis Kerwood, commander for of the 187th Ordnance Battalion; 1st Sgt. Jeremy Benando, 2nd Battalion, 60th Infantry Regiment; and Lt. Col. Geoffrey Greene, commander of the 1st Battalion, 34th Infantry Regiment. The team finished the course in 4 hours, 21 minutes.
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