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History builds 4th Engineer leaders

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Contributed by: Karen Linne on 7/2/2008

by James H. Egbert, Fort Carson Mountaineer
The 4th Engineer Battalion put together the Vanguard Leader Challenge to help stand up new leaders within the battalion. It was held in multiple training areas on Fort Carson Thursday night.
New sergeants and second lieutenants were introduced to the rich history of Army engineers through a series of physical and mental challenges designed to not only promote teamwork and leadership, but a sense of camaraderie.
Lt. Col. Erik Stor, commander, 4th Engineer Battalion, said that he and his command staff wanted to bring back a lost art of basic Soldiering skills with the Vanguard Leader Challenge.
"We started brainstorming one day down at National Training Center about an induction program of sorts, for junior leaders or green tab leaders, by getting the new leaders together and running them through six challenging stations to test their skills in leadership," said Stor.
Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony Archer and his staff laid out the Vanguard Leader Challenge course, incorporating a 12-mile road march with five challenge-event stations. Archer said that the course and challenges were designed to teach the lessons of the past and the practices of current operating procedures.
During the Vanguard Leader Challenge, physical endurance challenged each Soldier's mission essential task list and the ability to function as a team. The course related to the Army engineer mission on the battlefield and on the homefront. The first station related to the home-front mission of support to civilian authorities during natural disasters.
Each team loaded 50 sandbags into a Humvee and pushed the vehicle uphill to the next station where they unloaded the sandbags from the vehicle.
The second station related to the mission on the home front or the battlefield, when engineers provided crucial bridging support during the Civil War. Army engineers built pontoon and railroad bridges, constructed forts and batteries, demolished enemy supply lines and conducted siege warfare. In December 1862, they laid six pontoon bridges across the Rappahannock River, in Virginia, under devastating fire from Confederate sharpshooters, in support of the Union attack on Fredericksburg, Va.
In the Vanguard Leader Challenge, the squads carried logs from a start line to the next station and place them on the ground. At the next station, each Soldier in a squad drove a picket into the ground at a distance equal to the picket already pounded into the ground.
A Soldier from each squad then carried the picket-pounder to the next station and placed it on the ground. This led to the next station, which relates to the Army engineer wartime mission of improvised explosive device detection and ties to the Field Artillery.
Each squad split into two groups; five Soldiers at the start line and four Soldiers at the finish line. All Soldiers carried the 98-pound artillery round to the tire flip station, which relates to vehicles on convoys that have breakdowns and the engineer must be able to conduct maintenance operations. In this challenge station, the squad must flip a one-ton tire four times up hill signifying the 4th Engineer Battalion.
The next stage of the challenge was the evacuation of casualties. Squads carry a casualty up the hill and back down to the start line repeating all station tasks again until they return to the starting point.
"This challenge and each event is designed to be a controlled gut-check that tests the mental and physical endurance of each soldier individually and as part of a team," said Stor.
After the first of five events the Soldiers conducted a 1.5 mile road march to the second event challenge. In the second event they replicated the historical leadership and challenges Soldiers from the 86th Engineer Heavy Pontoon Battalion during World War II where they crossed the Rhine River in Germany.
Their mission was to conduct an assault river crossing, move all personnel and equipment across a body of water. Sappers from Company B, 9th Engineer Battalion marked a proposed landing site for each team. Once all personnel and equipment are on the far side, the Soldiers must break down and cache their assault crossing equipment prior to moving out.
According to the commander of the World War II combat engineer unit, the key to overcoming the artillery fire was from their absolute silence while working and not silhouetting them selves around the ferry site. They would only whisper when needed, and communicating mainly by hand and arm signals or by writing messages on paper.
The next challenge event was another road march to a minefield crossing challenge and another road march. Each road march was longer than the previous. Following the minefield event, the Soldiers were divided into two teams to perform a direct assault of a village with opposing forces followed by a 10-mile road march up and over Agony Hill to the Turkey Creek area was ordered for the final challenge event. After the previous mental and physical challenges were already draining the Soldiers, the additional mental challenge of a knowledge board awaited, seemingly adding insult to injury to the Soldiers.
Finally, Stor and his staff presented the new leaders of the 4th Engineer with certificates and awards as well as a welcome into the leadership ranks of the 4th Engineer Battalion.
"This was an outstanding event for all the junior leaders in the battalion. They gained a sense of pride in themselves and their training which actually brought them all together as a leadership team," said Archer.

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Karen Linne

Colorado Springs , CO

Karen Linne has posted 70 stories and 0 comments since joining on 8/29/2007. Karen Linne 's average story rating is 4.89.

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