To an untrained ear, the communication used to fire live artillery rounds can sound like total chaos.

However, for the soldiers of Fort Drum, it’s perfect English.

Fort Drum recently hosted one of its largest and loudest live training events — an artillery live fire. It’s the communication that helps map out exactly where large rounds will land, from as far as seven miles away.

“Kind of like overlays on a map. We’re getting all this information from all these different sources, different infantries, different corridors, different planes and stuff. It’s stuff that we have to take into consideration, churches. We establish them on our block, so that while we’re calculating data, it would never get close to that,” Staff Sgt. Victor Ramirez said.

That information, through that language, is sent to the artillery soldiers on the ground nearby, from setting the specifics to loading and firing the nearly 30-foot-long weapon, with 155 millimeter rounds.

It’s a critical part of the mission to ensure the troops ahead not only know, but can see what’s in front of them. And they light an area up.

“When we are down range, we offer support to infantry, observers, special forces, anything that has a ground unit, we offer support for them. Illums,” Spec. Ricardo Garciduenas said.

That support is critical, because as Ramirez said, no one wants to put a school or church in the line of fire. So this training, to officially certify these soldiers, truly is practice to make perfect.

“We just have to get this right down to the T. Everything. If someone messes us, that’s putting our lives on the line,” Garciduenas said.

“Especially, if we are deployed, just to know what to do. If we are in that situation, we need to just be ready for it, you know?” Pfc. Breanna Silvonic added.

It’s soldiers like Silvonic who are helping make this training not only critical, but historic. The U.S. Army has long kept women out of these heavy artillery positions. That changed not that long ago, and Silvonic is in one of the first waves of women to take part in these missions.

“I think it’s very special. I have to set the standards for the rest of the women that come into this unit. Just set the example and just try to do my best, show others how it should be done,” she added.

And this is not just a one day training for these soldiers. They have been out here on the ranges of Fort Drum for a full week. They’ve been moving around to different range areas, so they have to set up these artillery weapons and break them down every day, and, of course, they’ve been living out there for this full week as well.

The three things soldiers say they most look forward to after a week out in the woods is a comfy bed, a hot shower and a good meal.