ROANOKE (WSLS 10) - Virginia National Guard soldiers known as the Red Dragons are in Qatar for a year-long deployment where halfway around the world they are doing a security mission. They are assigned to the Lynchburg-based 1st battalion, 116th infantry regiment. The 450 Virginia National Guard soldiers represent four companies from Christiansburg, Bedford, Lexington and Lynchburg. In a WSLS 10 Exclusive, we take you inside the training at Ft. Bliss in Texas.
"Now! Move it! Move it!," you can hear one soldier screaming.
These soldiers must be prepared for anything.
"He's moving his weapon. I can't see him behind the white thing," screams another.
Before deploying for the security mission in Qatar, they are tested and coached at Ft. Bliss.
"We learned to be prepared for any sort of emergency contingencies and kind of learn to think outside the box and be adaptable and flexible," said Sgt. Jacob Newman, a team leader who is impressed with his soldiers going through the week long final exercise called MRX, short for Mission Rehersal Exercise. "One of the biggest things I want them to know is they need to be ready to step up and take charge at any time. You never know who's going to go down or when it's going to be their time to lead."
That's the goal of these exercises at Ft. Bliss. The more than 400 soldiers are guarding the front gate, the control point. The training they go through here is very similar to what they will see overseas.
"We're learning how to properly accept people coming in for work, how to properly turn people away for different reasons, how to handle different situations whether they're good or bad," said Cpl. Aaron Edgerton, with the Virginia National Guard.
Those situations include routine missions they will do every day overseas like shift rotations, changing of the guard and gate checks. But surprises like enemy attacks were also thrown at them. During one exercise, fellow soldiers got hurt and they had to keep moving. It's as real as it can get. Hurt soldiers are given fake injuries. Their first aid training comes into play as they practice how to get injured soldiers back to safety.
"I think my fire team gained valuable knowledge. A lot of the guys, this is going to be their first deployment, so this kind of training is absolutely what they need to get a good idea of what it's going to be like," said Sgt. John Painter, with the Virginia National Guard.
Painter passed down tips from past deployments to his team. They have been training for months, but in June at Ft. Bliss, it is all coming together.
"I have seen a whole lot of progression. My fire team personally they're doing 100 times better now than what they were doing back in March," said Painter. "My thoughts on the deployment, I'm excited personally. It will be a good opportunity for the younger guys to get that first deployment under their wing and come back home and be able to get a good head start."
The training they are getting in the field is also useful when they come back. Spc. Amber Yung is a medic who also works at a hospital in the Richmond area.
"It will definitely help with my medical skills. I'm always learning so I would like to take as many classes while I'm overseas as possible and I think the stuff that I learned at the hospital will definitely help my mission when overseas," said Yung.
"I've seen some amazing progression of our soldiers over the period of time. I've seen the teams develop, that's been very crucial to our success. Seeing some of the folks that have never done these sort of operations at all being able to adapt to what we're throwing at them," said 1st. Sgt. Doug Buntz, with Bravo Company out of Lexington who is now on his sixth deployment. "What I'm looking for is for my soldiers to come back better educated, some money in the bank and have some stepping stones to their own personal futures that help them post deployment."
"I'm very excited to be with this great group of men and women. I think we're going to do an exceptional job and we'll make this country proud," said Cpl. Edgerton.
This is the last training before deployment so they take it seriously. The national guard soldiers are now in Qatar putting all their training into action. We'll continue to follow the soldiers and their families during the next year.