Lightning Leader Training course
provides a challenge for lieutenants
Story and photos by Rick
Emert, Bamberg bureau
1st Lt. Frank Toney
bandages "casualty" 2nd Lt. Chuck Knoll during the land navigation portion of
1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery's Lightning Leader Training. |
WILDFLECKEN, Germany — Take 21 lieutenants, run them through the woods for three
days, deprive them of sleep and food and what do you get?
Better leaders, according to one battalion commander.
The lieutenants, all from the 1st Battalion, 7th Field Artillery Regiment out of
Schweinfurt, marched and fired their way through the battalion’s Lightning Leader
Training, a three-day course created to test the junior officers’ mettle.
"It’s designed to get tougher as they go," said Lt. Col. Gerry Galloway,
the battalion commander. "Under these conditions [limited sleep and meals], the
training is much more challenging."
Through the muck and long hours, Galloway added, the training would build the men into
better leaders.
"We’re not using this to grade them; it’s not to say ‘here’s
my best lieutenant,’ " he said.
Lieutenants from 1st
Battalion, 7th Field Artillery recheck the path they chose to locate their first point. |
And the lieutenants, who typically work as platoon leaders and executive officers in
the battalion, may have been frequently frustrated, but at the same time, they seemed to
love the challenges.
"This is really good training," said 1st Lt. Ralph Ware. "There’s
lots of cohesion for the [battalion’s] junior officers."
The training began before sunrise Tuesday morning with an Army Physical Fitness Test
and later an M-16 rifle qualification. Then, the lieutenants road-marched to the local
training area at Ledward Barracks in Schweinfurt where they spent the day and part of the
night patrolling through the woodline.
Late Tuesday night and into Wednesday morning they took a 200-question written test
before climbing into their sleeping bags at about 1 a.m. Four hours later, they were at it
again. When fog stopped Black Hawks from taking the group to Wildflecken, two
five-and-a-half-ton Army trucks showed up to haul them to the German training area.
After the bumpy ride, the men had about 10 minutes to prepare for the land navigation
course. Working in three teams of seven people, each group plotted positions and moved out
through the heavily wooded land sprinkled with steep hills. The goal was to find five
pre-plotted locations using grid coordinates, a map and a compass.
1st Lt. Robert Chung,
front, and 1st Lt. Frank Toney, rear, carry "casualty" 2nd Lt. Chuck Knoll. |
However, the timed course required more teamwork than typical ones. When a team found
its first point, it was given a problem to solve. For example, at one of the points, the
lieutenants learned they would have to carry one of their teammates on a stretcher —
for almost a mile through the dense terrain.
"The [land navigation course] was not a bad course; it was well laid out,"
said 1st Lt. Wade Germann. "The land navigation itself wasn’t challenging, but
there were scenarios that made us work as a team and pull together."
Completing the land navigation course in about three hours, the teams knew only half of
the training was complete. They would later have to conduct night patrols and fire-support
lane training Wednesday and Thursday — all the while working on only two meals a day
and three to four hours of sleep a night.
"A lot of these guys really rise to the occasion, like we can’t see in
garrison," Galloway said. "Some wear the uniform, walk the walk and talk the
talk, but when they get out here, we can see how well they take charge."
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