Army convoy rolls into Homestead's bivouac site

  • Published
  • By Senior Airman Nicholas Caceres
  • 482nd Fighter Wing Public Affairs
HOMESTEAD AIR RESERVE BASE, Fla. --  Army soldiers from the 260th Military Intelligence Battalion Alpha Company in Miami, Fla., recently conducted a wide range of training tasks here April 6 and 7.

The soldiers set up camp at the Homestead Air Reserve Base bivouac site to conduct intelligence mission essential task list drills, tactical convoy operations training, enemy contact training, training for near and far ambushes, counter improvised explosive device training, generator training, vehicle recovery operations training, and driver lane training.

According to Capt. Derrik Granata, the 260th has used Homestead ARB's bivouac site to train in the past as the space is perfect for the group to conduct their training.

"The opportunity to use Homestead's bivouac area proved to be invaluable," he said.

Granata points out Homestead ARB is far enough from the 260th's post to test their vehicles during the 35 mile drive to Homestead but it's not too far that they cannot recover their vehicles in case of breakdown. This shorter trip allowed for minimal impact on training on a short drill weekend.

METLs are commander provided and contain the mission focus for the year. Soldiers go out and perform role-play exercises dressed as foreign civilians. This is all performed in an attempt to be as realistic as possible and go from never meeting anyone in the area to building an approach plan and questioning processes. Then they evaluate the percentage of information the role players had and how much the troops managed to get out of them to see which areas should be improved.

The 260th took two platoons and split them up in vehicles and had them go through IED training. Simulated IEDs during the humvee course include static dummy IEDs as well as more elaborate pneumatic air compressors simulating weapons fire to test the troops on reaction in a more stressful training scenario. The types of IEDs the guard unit trained on are 64 percent likely to lead to casualties if not prepared for.

"We have been to Iraq, Afghanistan - we've deployed around the world," said Granata. "Now that we have new equipment that we haven't seen or used before, we need to learn how to operate it. So far we're doing a great job.

"It's great that Homestead would have us," Granata added. "Homestead is not just hosting a unit, they are helping us accomplish our mission since we don't have this amount of land at our home unit. Camp Landing, our only other alternative, is a 10 hour drive at the speeds our vehicles go and having Homestead so close is incredibly convenient and perfect for our mission. It's a win-win."

Next month at Camp Landing the 260th hope to conduct their annual training for 15 days. They'll take everything they learned here at Homestead and apply it there.