FORT BENNING, Ga., (Jan. 13, 2016) --Amidst training in the pine woods on Fort Benning, something occurred to Spc. Stephen Calderone, a basic combat trainee from Cleveland, Ohio - all of the physical training and the repetitious drills he and his peers have been doing tie into what they do on the battlefield.
Calderone's realization falls in line with why the Army changed basic training. Sgt. 1st Class Ryan McCaffrey, a drill sergeant leader at the U.S. Army Drill Sergeant Academy at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, told the Army News Service that with the new changes, drill sergeants can explain why Soldiers do push-ups or why they do the different exercise and condition drills and tie those into the warrior tasks and battle drills.
"I think once a person understands why you are supposed to do a task, they take more ownership of it, and they are more willing to execute it properly," McCaffrey said.
It all came together Jan. 7 when Calderone put those movements into action at the company's third and final field training exercise.
"It's the closest thing we could get to actually being in the field (in combat)," Calderone said. "They are all parts of what we actually do; it actually gives us hands-on experience."
In the field training exercise, Soldiers of D Company, 2nd Battalion, 47th Infantry Regiment, maneuvered as squads through the woodline to ambush an enemy, locate a cache site and evacuate a casualty.
The Soldiers applied knowledge and recalled tactics they've learned throughout their weeks of training to successfully conduct the mission at their third and final field training exercise of basic combat training.
Before executing the mission with a drill sergeant, platoons rehearsed continually until they understood what right looked like. They received criticism and discussed best practices at rehearsals as they were huddled with a drill sergeant.
"This is the most basic training that they can do, but it is certainly the most important because we are laying the foundation for these guys," said 1st Lt. Kevin Hissem, executive officer of D Co.
He explained that terrain will dictate Soldiers' movement, but it is the aspect of thinking critically which needs to be instilled in the Soldiers, regardless of military occupation specialty.
"These are the fundamentals of operating within a combat environment," Hissem said.
Calderone said the exercise instilled trust in the team leaders and the drill sergeants who acted as squad leaders.
Maneuvering through more than two miles of woodline, the Soldiers encountered enemy fire, opposing forces and, at one point, had to break contact.
Pvt. Jedidiah Wilson of Polo, Missouri, acted as an opposing force before his squad was tested on the lane and learned from the mistakes of his peers.
"It gives us experience - not as much as live action would, but it is ... something to prepare you for what might happen (in combat)," Wilson said.
At the end of FTX 3, Soldiers conducted a 16-kilometer ruck march back to the company area. The ruck marked the end of their field training as basic combat training Soldiers. Read about the ruck march in the Jan. 20 edition of the Bayonet and Saber.
Editor's note: This story is a part in the basic combat training series by Bayonet and Saber staff writer Noelle Wiehe. Read more stories in the upcoming editions.
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