Story and photo by Luke Waack
Assistant editor

Training Soldiers to operate in a hostile environment is one of the most important missions for a Basic Combat Training or One Station Unit Training organization.

The latest crop of combat engineers sharpened their tools of the trade in freezing temperatures, last week, as Company E, 35th Engineer Battalion cadre put Soldiers to the test in their final field training exercise of basic, at Training Area 241, Jan. 28.

Soldiers practiced maneuvers on the training Forward Operating Base, which was complete with guard towers and a concertina wire perimeter, as light layers of sleet fell on them and the surrounding pine and oak trees.

On average, the company trains three cycles of combat engineers each year. They do all this with 11 drill sergeants, the company commander, XO, first sergeant, an operations sergeant and two civilians, said 1st Lt. Aston Armstrong, Co. E executive officer.

“It’s their culminating event before basic training ends,” Armstrong said.

“We have a small class; we started out with 160 and right now we have 140,” Armstrong said. “The summer cycles are pretty big, like 220.”

This is typical of a winter cycle, Armstrong said.

The company runs its training camp at TA 241 just like a forward operating base overseas, said Sgt. 1st Class Jeromy Sigler, 3rd Platoon, platoon sergeant.

“We have reconnaissance out looking at a city, then we’re doing a courtesy patrol inside the city to talk to the mayor and do a security assessment,” Sigler said. “By then, there is usually contact made with the enemy inside the city, so we have to (go house to house and) and clear the rooms. They call up our Quick Reaction Force, which we have on the FOB. The QRF, rolls out and they hit mounted indirect fire, they dismount, and then they get hit with a near-ambush.”

Sigler has encountered this scenario himself, in combat.

“I have encountered IEDs with indirect, so it’s ambush with indirect fire or even an IED with an ambush after, in both Iraq and Afghanistan,” Sigler said.

The challenge of training new Soldiers is guiding them through their inexperience Sigler said.

“It’s just new to them, so we’re used to having Soldiers to go over and over it with them in a crawl-walk-run fashion,” Sigler said.

Soldiers demonstrate improvement after each set of maneuvers is repeated, Sigler said.

Soldiers were energized to be in their last week of BCT.

“I like it. Team tactics and surveillance, night surveillance and night watch is pretty much what we’ve been doing so far,” said Pvt. Darvale Ingram, Co. E, 35th Engr. Bn.

After the FTX, Soldiers will go through end of cycle testing.