Thunderous booms spread for miles around Fort Polk Joint Readiness Training Center as combat engineers from A Company, 256th Brigade Special Troops Battalion from New Roads detonated explosives as part of their training.
Though the training is part of an annual exercise, the company First Sergeant, Christopher J. Lemaire of Maurice said it plays a vital role for future deployments. Many of the engineers are combat veterans who deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom, but a large percentage of them recently enlisted and have not participated in this type of exercise before.  They are new troops who have only attended Advanced Individual Training which is the occupational training completed after Basic Combat Training.
“We had about two and a half days of training prior to this exercise, and since we have so many new soldiers, this was the first time this group has worked together during annual training,” Lemaire said.  “Overall, I think it went very well.”
For their training these soldiers, who are combat engineers, detonate explosive devices which can be as small as blowing a door off of its hinges, or as big as blowing up part of a road, which would cause enemy traffic to detour and be better controlled. They also had training on improvised explosive devices and land navigation.
Spc. John M. Logsdon, a native of Baton Rouge and one of the team leaders who led his squad through the course, explained that explosive devices would be used in a war situation by destroying roads in an effort to control enemy routes. He said the shape charge is detonated first, which creates a small hole. A cratering charge placed in the same hole follows, which blows a hole large enough to prevent traffic from crossing.
The soldiers are about a week into their annual training and will be finishing their last week with a 12-mile road march followed by a live-fire, the leader’s reaction course, and weapons qualifications at Camp Beauregard, located in Pineville.
For more information please contact Sgt. Tresa L. Allemang, 199th Brigade Support Battalion Unit Public Affairs Representative, at tresa.allemang@us.army.mil  or (337) 348-2577.