Email   Print   Share By Staff Sgt. David House, 85th CA Bde. Public Affairs

Facebook Digg Delicious August 23, 2012 | Living

Members of the 81st Ca Bn. and a role player rush a patient out to link up with a Black Hawk helicopter from the 1st Cavalry Division to assist with medical evacuation training. The event was part of a weeklong field training exercise held at the Hargrove MOUT Facility at North Fort Hood. Maj. Bryan Woods, 85th CA Bde. Public Affairs

Members of the 81st CA Bn. react to an insurgent attack during a weeklong field training exercise held at the Hargrove MOUT Facility at North Fort Hood. The exercise featured many scenarios to test the battalion on various basic Soldier and civil affairs-specific skill sets. Maj. Bryan Woods, 85th CA Bde. Public Affairs

Cheers and applause filled the air as the ribbon was cut to open a new health clinic. It might have been a simulated medical clinic, but the training behind it was very real as members of the 81st Civil Affairs Battalion spent a week honing their skills during a battalion field training exercise at the Hargrove Military Operation in Urban Terrain Facility at Fort Hood, Aug. 13 through Friday.

“Our FTX has been designed to focus on (down range) scenarios in which teams encounter a variety of situations to further enhance their operating procedures” Capt. Jeffrey Chase, Company D, 81st CA Bn., said. “The unexpected surprises, which were deliberately written into each scenario based on past experiences, helped keep us on our toes.”

Some of the scenarios that the civil affairs Soldiers encountered included key leader engagements, project management, react to enemy contact and improvised explosive devices, as well as casualty response and evacuation.

One unexpected surprise during the event was the insertion of reporters on the battlefield. Knowing how to adapt to their presence was a key thing on the minds of many.

“The media is something that I thought I knew, but this really showed us all that we need to be aware of who else is on the battlefield,” said Capt. Stephanie Downard, 81st CA Bn., team leader. “Learning about it now is better than down the road while deployed.”

The ever-presence of media, to include social media, has revolutionized not only the way conflicts are reported, but the way conflicts actually begin and ultimately end. But to be successful, all falls back on one’s training and proper planning.

“Planning,” Staff Sgt. Joe Perez, Co. D, 81st CA Bn., said. “Whenever you get a good mission, plan to have unlimited courses of action for each mission, as that can only help you, as anything can happen.

“Being out here at this event helped expose our weaknesses on what we needed to train on as well, acknowledging our strengths in coming together as teams” Perez said. “This opened our eyes on what we can achieve as a team.”

The weeklong field exercise not only showed them their

capabilities as a warrior diplomat and as a civil affairs team, but gave them a clearer picture of what needs to be strengthened in order to prepare for the inevitable as a unit.

“Having been deployed before, I have experienced similar events that we dealt with today and it is realistic for our teams,” Chase said. “Additionally, I would like to see our teams be able to interact with

infantry and armor units so that they can learn to embed themselves with them and for the maneuver units to learn what we, as civil affairs, do while on a mission.”

This field training exercise was one of many that the 81st has participated in, and it is the prelude to the upcoming 85th Civil Affairs Brigade’s Culmination Exercise, or CULFEX, scheduled for September.