Back To The Basics

The men of the 2nd I.D. Living History Association gathered for our August training event on Saturday, August 22nd out at Ft. Atkinson State Historical Park. The weather was absolutely amazing for mid-August in Nebraska with a cool morning and an afternoon high around 80 degrees. We had sunny skies all day long!!! All of our core members were able to make it out for the day including Dave, Gus, Kevin, Sean, Scott, Jeff and Casey. I had the privilege and honor of being able to lead the training session for this event. For this training day we decided to go back to the basics of being a soldier in World War II. We started the day by going over the school of the soldier without arms. This included having the squad fall in, learning about intervals, the position of attention, saluting, facings and some basic marching. The squad then decided to stop for a water break and a quick lunch of K-Rations. We then moved on to practice the manual of arms for the rifle which included handling the rifle, saluting with the rifle, presenting arms, and the 15 count manual of arms. We did a lot of marching around the Council House on the fort grounds. After we felt pretty comfortable with manual of arms we trained on how to properly pitch our shelter half tents. This is something that our unit has rarely done because we have typically used Dave's GP Medium tent at most of our local events. Our three two man teams were able to successfully set up three shelter halves doing it all by the book. I then did a quick demonstration of a display of equipment for field inspection. Here is a diagram of what that looks like.
We wrapped up the day with a quick administrative meeting and we were heading home before 4:00. A lot of the guys commented that it was our unit's best training event to date. It was sure a lot of fun and we really brushed up on some valuable soldiering skills.