Posted on 01/28/2004 6:04:25 PM PST by Ragtime Cowgirl
Artillery, armor units training to deploy as MPs By Spc. William Addison and Staff Sgt. Pascual Flores
FORT DIX, N.J. (Army News Service, Jan. 28, 2004) -- Artillerymen normally pride themselves on their weapons, so when about 2,500 National Guard members were informed they were being deployed without their howitzers, it came as a shock. |
FORT DIX, N.J. -- Artillerymen normally pride themselves on their weapons, so when about 2,500 National Guard members were informed they were being deployed without their howitzers, it came as a shock.
Fort Dix has been designated a mobilization and training center for field artillery and armor units that are being deployed for missions normally performed by military police companies..
Eleven National Guard units are already training at Fort Dix, including guardsmen from New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.
The artillerymen will ..be required to qualify on much smaller weapons than they are used to, including the M-16 or M-4 carbine, M-9 pistol, MK-19 40mm automatic grenade launcher...
I think everyone whos in the artillery would rather tow a M-198 behind them, but a mission is a mission, said Sgt. Bill Chaussee...It came as a disappointment, said Sgt. 1st Class Thomas McGee..There are a lot of us that love artillery, but we can adjust.
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Transformation, bang! ~*
We are going to be needing artillerymen again.
You can train gun bunnies to be Constabulary troopers a helluva faster than you can train MP's to put 155mm counter-mortar fire on target in under a minute. I wish they were taking their guns with them.
Yep, these guys were trained to put steel on target, not play cop.
Rather, when we mediate a tribal dispute, there ain't gonna be anyone left to despute our mediation!
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