November 2011-January 2012 - Wisconsin National Guard ...

Agribusiness Development Team prepares for deployment to help Afghani farmers sow seeds of successContinued from Page 34Unit personnel bring a variety ofbackgrounds and experience to themission, he said. The approximately 60members include security and medicalpersonnel, Feucht said. In addition tomilitary skills, members of the ADT alsohave experience in agriculture-relatedfields, including hydrology, veterinaryservices, entomology, forestry, marketingand farming.Female team members also will havethe role of supporting and developingwomen’s cultural programs, he said.“We came to Fort McCoy to fulfill ourcollective military training tasks,” Feuchtsaid. “Fort McCoy is close to home forthe Soldiers here, and we can do all of themilitary training we need to do.”The training at Fort McCoy includedusing the Contingency OperatingLocations (Forward Operating Bases),rural village facilities and weapons ranges,he said. A field training exercise alsoallowed for key leader engagement.“These locations add to the realism ofour training and help get soldiers into thedeployment mindset” said Capt. WilliamBenson, operations officer for the 82ndADT. “This training was about as realisticas you could get to being at a deployedforward operating base.”To further add to the realism,approximately 60 RecruitmentSustainment Program soldiers fromvarious RSP units took part in the fieldtraining exercise, playing the part of localvillagers, key leaders and even enemycombatants.“It was great having a lot of peoplethere; it definitely amped up the stresslevel of the training and made it a lotmore realistic,” said Nicholas Crochiere,a mechanic assigned to the 82nd ADT.“Normally one or two people will playthose parts, but we had an entire villageof people on some of the missions that wedid.”Maj. Paul Felician, S2-Intelligence,@easeExpressMembers of the 82nd Agribusiness Development Team during an early morningpremission briefing at Fort McCoy Oct. 15. 82nd ADT photo by 2nd Lt. StephenMontgomerysaid Fort McCoy offered a number ofgood training opportunities to prepareunit members for their military roles indeployment. Since ADT members arefrom a number of different units, thetraining also provided opportunitiesfor teamwork and cross-training in thevarious skills needed for the mission.“They will learn about every piece ofequipment we have and learn each other’sjob,” Felician said.Spc. Kimberly Flock, a medic, helpedteach a combat life-saver class to othermembers of the unit.“Everyone teaches everybody elsewhat they know,” Flock said. “Everyoneis cross-trained so we at least have basicknowledge of everything that we do.The practical exercises give us hands-onexperience and we can ask questions.”While the Army only require 25percent of deploying members to becombat life saver certified, Feucht wantedto ensure all its member were certified.“Twenty-five percent wasn’t goodenough for us,” said Feucht.”Flock, who has been in the NationalGuard for three years, said after seeingmany of her friends deploy, she wasanxious to get deployment experience.Command Sgt. Maj. Jeff Mand, whohas deployed to Iraq, said there weremultiple volunteers for the positions, sothe best personnel were chosen. Mand,who lived on a farm as a youth, alsoknows his way around agriculture.“These are the best of the best,Wisconsin’s finest,” he said. “Ivolunteered to go to this mission to servewith Colonel Feucht and take care of theSoldiers.”Staff Sgt. George Nagel of the AirNational Guard brings his experience inentomology, or pest management, to themission.“I saw this mission as an opportunityto help people,” Nagel said. “It was ahumanitarian mission to better people’slives.”Nagel said he will impart knowledgeabout how to control pests, grow crops,and store crops to have a better food cropfor the Afghan people.As one of two Air National Guardpersonnel in the mission, Nagel said hehad a big training curve to learn the ArmyWarrior Tasks necessary to perform themission, including tasks the Air Forcedoesn’t normally do, and combat drills.He does bring deployment experience ashe has been deployed to Iraq.Capt. Sarah Bammel will serve asa hydrologist. She earned a degree inmeteorology from the University ofMichigan. Bammel’s duties will includedetermining ways to increase irrigationefforts in Afghanistan. Many areascurrently use drip-irrigation methods.Unit members spent an earlier trainingsession learning about their agriculturalmission from various agricultural experts,including personnel from the Universityof Wisconsin Agriculture Department,Feucht said.Mand said after this training the unitwill conduct its mobilization/deploymenttraining at Camp Atterbury, Ind., beforedeploying to Afghanistan in spring 2012.2nd Lt. Stephen Montgomery, an AirNational Guard public affairs officer, willserve as the unit’s public affairs officerand historian.Montgomery will document the unit’smission and tell its story.“As the unit historian, one of my bigjobs will be to document not only themissions we go on, but all aspects of ourdeployment for the Army,” he said. “I alsowill serve in the typical role as a PublicAffairs officer; taking pictures, writingstories and, basically, telling our unit’sstory.”2nd Lt. Stephen Montgomerycontributed to this report.35 November 2011-January 2012