The mission on this day is for members of the 10th Mountain Division’s 2nd Brigade 2-87 infantry to take over an enemy village.

It starts in the woods as they approach a building. It soon ends up in a fire fight.

What You Need To Know

  • President Joe Biden recently announced that he wants to pull all troops from Afghanistan this fall

  • Fort Drum soldiers with the 2nd Brigade, 2-87 Infantry Regiment conducted a week long training event this week where they used live ammo and spend the week in a back woods range on post

  • Soldiers say they prepare for anything at any time and not knowing the next step doesn’t impact that one bit

Now, this is a training event on range, deep in the woods of Fort Drum, but the actions and the ammo are all live. This is as real as it gets without being in an actual battle.

“Simulations can do everything and kind of create that muscle memory, but once you get that live ammo, that’s where you really see what you’ve learned,” SGT Trey Michael, 2-87 Team Leader said.

It’s training like this when everything is live and even the snow conditions earlier this week came into play where communication, teamwork, leadership and most importantly safety come into play.

The goal is to make sure these soldiers are ready for combat, but also to make sure they come home from combat. These kinds of weeks are what make soldiers.

“It’s just mission readiness. You never know what’s going to come. You have got to train for absolutely everything,” SGT Jesse Brennan, 2-87 Squad Leader said.

However, that’s the thing. For nearly 20 years, since the attacks on September 11, the 10th Mountain has had a general idea of what’s next. They’ve made deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan, rotation after rotation. But with last week’s announcement that the U.S. plans to pull all troops from Afghanistan, no one really knows what’s next.

It’ll be a different type of atmosphere on Fort Drum over the next year, but it doesn’t change the fact the 10th is a light infantry division and has to be ready at all times.

“That’s the hallmark of the 10th Mountain Division," LTC Josh Glonek, the 2-87 Battalion Commander said. "We’re the most deployed division in the United States Army. We were some of the first in Afghanistan and will likely be some of the last out. Our soldiers know there can be other conflicts in the future and we need to be ready at a moment’s notic.” 

There is one other aspect of this training that makes it just about as real as it can be.

These soldiers were out in these woods, on this range from Monday through Friday. They did not go home, even in this snow. They slept out here in only sleeping bags. There is one tent on the range, but that’s for emergencies and radio needs.

So again, this was an extremely realistic event for these soldiers that lasted a full week. They got the full experience.

About 100 members of the 2nd Brigade Combat Team took part in this week’s training event that is being referred to as the “fundamental” training soldiers must go through.