Posted on 07/21/2009 12:34:47 PM PDT by darrellmaurina
FORWARD OPERATING BASE TAJI, Iraq (July 14, 2009) — Soldiers from the 4th, 5th, and Headquarters, Iraqi Army Field Engineer Regiments partnered with 50th Multi-Role Bridge Company from Fort Leonard Wood, a part of Joint Task Force Eagle, to train on Mabey and Johnson Bridge emplacement at the Iraqi Army Engineer School from July 3 to 13. The Iraqi Army Engineer School trains 400 to 500 Iraqi Army engineers each rotation. The 50th MRBC, which supports the 555th Engineer Brigade, assists this effort by instructing groups of 20 to 30 IA Engineers during ten-day blocks of classroom and hands-on bridge training.
(Excerpt) Read more at pulaskicountydaily.com ...
Ahh, Ft. Leonard Wood - where I took Army basic training. The memories!!!
I was at 6 forts in the late 60s and early 70s. Ft. Leonard Wood was the biggest hell hole on earth. And I was at Polk in August. LOL
AIT for me. We policed rocks from the lawn. Every day there were more rocks. I'll bet they're still policing rocks from the same lawns.
My late brother Peter entered Fort Leonardwood 50 years ago for basic training. He then spent 2 years at SHAPE in Paris.
Leonard Wood for basic, Redstone Arsenal for AIT
My basic training company was a DOD experiment.
They intentionally shipped guys from all kinds of induction centers all around the country, forming a basic training company where most everyone came from somewhere else; and even with more than one guy from some states, not one of them was from the same part of the state.
Our records were flagged and our service was monitored by some office at DOD. I guess someone wanted to see what effects our basic experience may have had on our service, compared to others.
I discovered this when I temporarily occupied my Battalion HQ Personnel desk while we waited a few months for the official replacement to arrive.
You got the rocks, we got the cigarette butts.
Like your rocks, the butts we had to police up were always in areas where NO ONE could smoke and would get punished if caught there. So no one did. But there were the butts anyway.
And the idiot DIs thought we were idiots. /sarc
Ft. Leonard Wood, where even the snakes have ticks.
Well... Fort Leonard Wood has changed a lot in 50 years. The post is now the home of the Army Engineer School, Army Chemical School (now called CBRN) and MP School, it’s the center for virtually all army truck driving and convoy training, and it’s the largest Marine detachment off a Marine base and largest Air Force detachment off an Air Force base.
The off-post community is approaching 35,000 people, with another 10,000 to 15,000 permanent party and family members living on post depending on the time of year and training load. The closer-in communities will show nearly double the population in 2010 that they had in the 2000 census, and lots of people are also living in the unincorporated areas and smaller towns.
But as for the training environment (ticks, chiggers, snakes, etc.), well, the best thing that can be said is our soldiers have better fabric for their uniforms and better boots than they once did. The post was built in 1940 to simulate a rocky and hilly European battlefield environment like what our soldiers would be expecting to fight in over there, and it certainly doesn’t have the luxuries of American big city life. At least it’s not Fort Irwin or someplace that’s designed to simulate hot desert conditions our soldiers will be fighting in today.
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