MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE, North Carolina --
Marines with 2nd Combat Engineer Battalion, 2nd Marine
Division, conducted a combat engineer specialists leadership course, (SAPPER)
for Marines with 4th CEB, 4th Marine Division, stationed at various units
across the U.S. and soldiers with the 119th Engineer Company out of the West
Virginia Army National Guard, aboard Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, June 26,
2015.
“We’ve been teaching these guys everything engineer related
from demolitions to patrolling, sweeping with metal detectors, fortifications,
wire obstacles; basically everything that ties into the engineer field is what
we’ve been going over in the classroom and then we go into the field with
practical application,” said Cpl. Will Smith, a SAPPER instructor with 2nd CEB.
One major portion of the SAPPER Leaders Course is assault
and breaching, which included the service members utilizing line charges and
Anti-Personnel Obstacle Breaching Systems.
“A line charge is … a long line made out of detonation cord
and then they make small blocks of C4 that are strung out across it,” Smith
said. “They run up to the obstacle and then throw the charge over it. When it
detonates, it ideally clears the lane in half for them to walk through. The
APOBS are essentially the same thing, just a lot bigger.”
While this training is common for the Marines of 2nd CEB, it’s
a different element for the Marines with 4th CEB, which is a reserve unit.
Cpl. Ian Jennings, a fire team leader with 4th CEB and the
honor graduate for the course, said that his unit goes to the field four to
five times a year, but the training is not as extensive that the course is.
“It’s a small unit and you’re not told what to do as much,”
Jennings said. “On the reserve side, you have a lot of junior Marines … but
here, everyone knows at least the baseline of what they should be doing at all times.”
Smith said that the best way to make it through the course
is to keep a strong warrior mentality where you set aside the conditions of
yourself and stay focused on your Marines and your mission.
“The most important thing they could learn during the course
is to have a stronger mentality of being in an uncomfortable setting and being
able to push through that,” Smith said. “Since they’re reservists they don’t
get the opportunity to do as much training … whenever they get here they
realize they are going to be tested, exhausted, frustrated and around people
they don’t know and will have to learn how to make it work.”
Both Smith and Jennings could agree that there was one
aspect of the training the Marines were able to learn from their experience.
“They suffer together and that absolutely forges team work.
They don’t have an option. At first everyone gets here and they don’t know each
other, they don’t know what to expect of the course,” Smith said. “As things
progress and they get to know each other and each other’s strengths and
weaknesses through the different challenges, they realize there’s no other way
to get through it than with team work.”
“The most difficult part of the course for me was just
trying to get the whole group to come together as a whole and to use team work
to get through stuff instead of everyone just trying to work as individuals,”
As Marines move forward they need to focus on more
conventional tactics and techniques that will maintain readiness in any theater
of combat. This training helps forge the way for warfare, whether it is
amphibious or expeditionary.
“This is more for conventional warfare, not like you would
see in Iraq or Afghanistan but down the road we need to be prepared for
anything that could pop up at any time,” said Jennings. “As engineers we need
to be able to breach that obstacle so we can get the infantry in so they can do
their jobs.”