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Kapolei, Hawaii. (July 15, 2022). I was born at the U.S. Army’s 97th General Hospital in Frankfurt, Germany with a big green US stamped on my first diaper. The son of an Army officer, I would grow up a “military brat” until joining the Army myself at age 17, as is often expected of military youth. Army families were big in those days (ours had seven kids), and we learned early that we were “different” from our civilians hosts at whatever duty station we ended up.
Ours was an existence of radical change, constant uncertainty, and the instability of packing up our lives every three years. We marveled at folks who grew up where they were born and would live out their lives in one place. Military kids had to adapt to strange environments, quickly make new friends while settling into a new school every couple of years. This meant short courtships, fast friends and quickly passing enemies in the formative years that shaped our view of the world.
As kids, we had a saying “The first year you get to know someone, the second year you get to liking them, and the third year you say goodbye.” If you ask a civilian; “Where are you from”, they usually have a very specific answer. I went to three elementary, two middle and two high schools from Hawaii to Florida, never feeling “at home” anywhere. To us, home was where we laid our proverbial hats.
We grew accustomed to routine relocations, but we never got used to our father’s deployments during the Viet Nam War. Dad did two tours, each lasting nearly two years, during which we were glued to our television every night following nightly casualty reports as civilians do the weather.
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PHU YEN, Vietnam (June 21, 2022). It was the day after Christmas, 2004, and the beaches of resort towns across the Indian Ocean were jammed with tourists escaping the cold.
At 8 a.m., a magnitude 9 earthquake ripped a hole in the bottom of the sea sending massive waves toward these unsuspecting shores. The resulting disaster, known as the Boxing Day Tsunami, was the deadliest in history claiming an astonishing 230,000 lives.
Read more: FROM DEADLIEST TSUNAMI IN HISTORY A HUMANITARIAN PARTNERSHIP FORMED
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National Training Center, CA. (June 28, 2022). We have become all too familiar with the term Improvised Explosive Device (IED) and the terrible carnage they have wrought on our troops. According to the humanitarian group Action On Armed Violence, there were an estimated 172,000 casualties worldwide from IEDs in the past decade (IEDs Past, Present & Future, Overton 2020). Beginning with the first roadside bomb attack in Iraq in 2003, these devices have killed or wounded over 21,000 American servicemembers.
Facing this threat is America’s combat engineers.
The first recorded use of IEDs begins with the invention of gunpowder by the Chinese in the 9th century. Looking for a life extending elixir, the Chinese instead discovered an explosive substance they could pack into tubes to hang outside the walls of their forts. When an enemy reached their gates, someone would light the fuse and, bang, no more enemy.
During the Civil War, IEDs were employed by Confederate soldiers at the Battle of Williamsburg in 1862. Realizing the Union Army was about to overrun their position, the rebels cleverly buried munitions under the Union front causing numerous casualties and also allowed the Confederates to escape.
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Fort Hunter Liggett, CA. (July 1, 2022). In this real-life scenario, an infantry unit manages to liberate an airfield from enemy hands but predictably most of the roads and facilities have been reduced to rubble. That’s when commanders call in the combat engineers.
Combat engineering battalions not only deal with explosives, but they are also highly skilled construction teams able to rapidly build airfields, construct housing and repair ports and bridges. One platoon, for example, is dedicated to the building trades, including carpentry, plumbing and electricity while another handles heavy equipment jobs using steam rollers, back-hoes, road graders and large cranes.
Engineers can quickly repair roads, clear obstacles, and create infrastructure in a matter of days, tasks that would take a civilian crew weeks to accomplish.
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Camp Lejeune, N.C. (June 30, 2022). Combat Engineers are called “Sappers”, a name derived from the French word “sappe” (spadework or trench) and became connected with military engineering during the 17th century when attackers dug covered trenches to approach the walls of a besieged fort.
In today’s land warfare, combat engineers have two primary missions, clear the way for our forces to advance or emplace obstacles to kill or slow the enemy.
Read more: BUILDING BRIDGES, CLEARING MINEFIELDS ANOTHER DAY IN THE LIFE OF COMBAT ENGINEERS
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Ft. Leonard Wood, MO. (July 1, 2022). America’s Combat Engineers trace their history to Valley Forge and the terrible winter of 1778 under the command of General George Washington. Drawn from the ranks of artillery units, these soldier’s use of explosives often turned the tide of battle. In those days, engineers dug tunnels deep under enemy fortifications, setting off massive explosions that could then be exploited by the infantry. Today’s combat engineers perform much more sophisticated tasks using instruments the Revolutionary War soldier could scarcely imagine.
U.S. Army Combat Engineers must pass a rigorous 19-week course at Ft. Leonard Wood, Missouri while the Marines operate their own slightly shorter version at Camp Lejeune, North Carolina. Students learn basic demolitions, defusing explosive hazards, constructing obstacles, building bridges, and reconstructing ports and airfields.
Read more: FROM VALLEY FORGE TO AFGHANISTAN, COMBAT ENGINEERS LEAD THE WAY