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| On target: Military unit storms Troy |
By: Chris Menees Messenger Staff Reporter
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Posted: Thursday, October 1, 2009 10:53 pm
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By CHRIS MENEES
Messenger Staff Reporter
The 101st Airborne was right on target Wednesday.
Soldiers from the U.S. Army’s highly-respected Fort Campbell-based division literally took Troy by storm as they converged on the town for a training mission that captured the community’s attention and commanded its respect.
The impressive assault exercise — Operation Diomedes, a nod to a leader of the Greeks in the Trojan War — brought to town about 150 soldiers, a convoy of military support vehicles and 18 helicopters that included Blackhawks, Kiowa Warriors and Apache gunships.
Throughout the day, there was plenty of activity both above and below as helicopters frequently zipped over Troy and as soldiers on the ground completed their tasks and then gladly mingled with residents, often answering a barrage of questions in the process.
Local residents were fortunate to have front-row seats to the rare off-base training exercise, courtesy of designated viewing areas at landing sites at Troy’s industrial park, Troy First Baptist Church, Troy’s Trojan Park and Hoyt Sampson’s farm in Troy, where simulated combat operations were conducted from about 11 a.m. until shortly after noon Wednesday. They were followed by a simulated medevac landing about 1 p.m. at Hillcrest Elementary School’s football field, where students lined the front drive to watch.
In between, the soldiers successfully completed their objective: to capture a “high value target” named “Haji” — portrayed by Ricky Dugger Troy, whose family has enjoyed a special relationship with the soldiers for the past several years after an initial meeting at an air show.
Dugger was “captured” about noon from his hiding place in a cabin on Sampson’s farm just off Main Street in Troy, where soldiers utilized blanks in their firearms to make the operation as realistic as possible as they closed in on the target. Visitors to this particular landing site witnessed an impressive exchange of fire power as the soldiers focused on the task at hand and set their sights on the target.
A crowd of onlookers cheered as the target was taken into custody.
Successful mission
Maj. Jeff Kirby, executive officer for the 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, said the operation took the full cooperation of two units working together — the infantry battalion, which provided all of the troops and ground vehicles, and the aviation battalion, which runs the helicopters.
Kirby said the operation started from the aviation battalion and some pilots’ relationships with the Dugger family, including Ricky and his late brother, Steve Dugger, and their parents, Bobby and Jane Dugger. He said the mission had been in the planning stages two or three years ago, but it never got off the ground. In time, discussion resurfaced and the aviation and infantry battalion commanders began to make plans — which ultimately included making several visits to Troy in recent weeks to meet with city officials and law enforcement to arrange for use of the town.
Kirby said an urban training exercise such as the one conducted Wednesday gives the soldiers extremely valuable and realistic off-base training that will help during actual combat situations.
“It adds a level of complexity and uncertainty,” he said. “Fort Campbell has a lot to offer us, but a lot of the guys train there quite a bit, so we just took 99 troopers and just put them in an environment they’d never seen before, other than from some overhead photos.
“All they know is ‘OK, we’re going to Troy, Tennessee. We’ve got a picture of this guy we’re looking for, Ricky Dugger.’ ... And intelligence led them to three different objectives that we had out in the city — the Baptist church and the industrial center and the sports complex up the road. Information led them to Sampson’s farm and that’s the next place they went chasing him.”
Aviators were forced to deal with obstacles such as overhead wires, buildings, trees and small helicopter landing zones, while the ground troops had to rely solely on intelligence that had been provided to them.
“That soldier — all he knows is what’s been described to him,” Kirby said. “As soon as he gets on the ground, whatever picture they painted for him, it may or may not be the same. What you don’t see in pictures is things like hills, little berms and trees and little obstacles. That’s kind of what’s unique and different for them.”
Capt. Steven Weber, who was in charge of the ground forces as company commander for Bravo Company, 2nd Battalion, 327th Infantry Regiment, said Wednesday’s operation was well executed by all of those involved and gave the soldiers invaluable training in a real-life setting.
“On base, they’ve got some great training for us, some mock-up cities and stuff, but it doesn’t give you the realism of an actual town or city,” he said.
He said off-base training exercises like the Troy mission are rare. In fact, the operation Wednesday marked his first such operation in his 11-year Army career, which was preceded by service in the National Guard.
“This is very rare. This is the first time I’ve ever done something like this,” Weber said.
In praising those involved, Weber said he found the people of Troy and Obion County to be very receptive to the arrival of the military and very accommodating.
“This is great. I couldn’t ask for anything better as far as support from the public,” Weber said. “You don’t get to see that every day. When we lifted off at Fort Campbell, I said this is probably one of the greatest things I’ve done as company commander, coming out here. Just the fact they opened up their town to us to go out here and do this is by far some of the best training I’ve done.
“This is probably one of the best days of my military career so far,” he added.
After the training exercise, back at the Dugger farm where the soldiers were treated to a meal, commanders made special presentations to the Dugger family, Troy Mayor Jimmie Hart, the Obion County Sheriff’s Department, the Troy Police Department and the Tennessee Highway Patrol in appreciation for their support.
Lt. Col. John Kline, who had command of all of the helicopters and crew members as commander of the aviation task force, Task Force Eagle Assault, said Wednesday’s exercise actually began Tuesday when a couple of reconnaissance helicopters flew over Troy to help develop the scenario. They reported having encountered pretend gunfire and relayed that intelligence to others who would be returning Wednesday for the full-blown assault.
He also noted that such off-base training exercises are indeed rare.
“We wanted to do something that wasn’t in our normal backyard,” Kline said. “And it’s particularly important given the distance that we’re going because we’re exercising things like our long-range communications systems, we have to do analysis now on the objective areas, we have to look at these new landing zones. We’re so used to flying into Fort Campbell that all my pilots have that area memorized, so now this forces us to go out and do some homework and figure it out and work with the local law enforcement and everything else.”
He said most of the pilots utilized Wednesday had been overseas and were familiar with such training, but he emphasized that it will help tremendously during actual combat.
“Some of this was the personal relations piece of this thing, but really what sold it for our leadership to allow us to do this is the training benefit out of this,” he added.
Staff Reporter Chris Menees may be contacted by e-mail at cmenees@ucmessenger.com.
Published in The Messenger 10.01.09 |
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