4-25 IBCT Public Affairs
1/30/2015 - JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska -- Three U.S. Army Alaska Soldiers and five Marines completed the Finnish Army's Cold Weather Operations Basic Course near the Arctic Circle in Lapland, Finland Jan. 16.
"It is a course that mirrors our Cold Weather Leaders Course," said Sgt. 1st Class Shalim Guzman, a platoon sergeant with Delaware Company, 1st Battalion (Airborne), 501st Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division. "We were there to compare their knowledge and [ours] within the cold-weather operation and environments."
Guzman, a Puerto Rico native, has now attended both courses.
"Once we got there we recognized immediately the difference in the courses," Guzman said. "Everything their course does is on skis and mainly the stuff that we do here is done on snow shoes."
The key elements of the Finnish course include squad movement and fighting techniques, safe and effective weapons handling in sub-zero conditions and military ski techniques.
It also teaches about using snow vehicles, making and using snow shelters, orienteering, survival, and sustaining health and performance.
"Overall it was a tremendous experience," said Sgt. 1st Class Cory James Birdsong, a Salina, Kansas, native and 4-25 schools non-commissioned officer. "It was a unique opportunity to see how the Finnish army operates and get a different take on how another unit also operates in an arctic environment."
The 10-day course is divided into three parts. The first part - five days of basic training and exercises - ends with a test before students can continue.
"The training was physical," said Guzman. "It was the second hardest school I have done since Ranger school. We skied about 120 kilometers ... you have your skis on the entire time."
"We as U.S. Soldiers in Alaska are not used to skiing as much as we did in Finland; we do ski for physical training every now and then, but to ski as much as we did for that period of time was really hard to adapt to," Guzman said.
The second part of the course included four days of live-fire training; students were divided into small groups and given scenarios to complete.
"The training was all delivered in English, the instructors and students there all spoke English very well," Birdsong said.
"The first few days they showed us how everything worked, how they did everything, and the rest of the time we were doing operations, raids and missions using the skills we learned."
Finnish soldiers helped by making most of the task easy to understand, Guzman added.
"I think this partnership will work out great," Guzman said. "The Finnish soldiers I got to meet were extremely happy for us to be there and to actually do some of the things they do. They were also happy to let us use their equipment and give them an honest opinion on how well it worked.
"Overall the partnership was amazing and they took really good care of us from the beginning."
"We were treated very well," Birdsong said. "Finnish Army Capt. Juha Massinen, the overall course leader, treated us just like we were his soldiers."
In the final part of the course, the students jumped into freezing water, removed their skis, came out of the water and built a fire.
"Here in Alaska, we don't do that," Guzman said. "For me to go to another country, and jump into below-freezing water at the very end of all the training was mentally challenging, but overall it was a good course.
"I can't wait for them to come try out CWLC."
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment