JOINT MULTINATIONAL READINESS CENTER, Germany – The Horizontal Platoon, 821st Engineer Construction Company, 1092nd Engineer Battalion, 111th Engineer Brigade, West Virginia Army National Guard traveled from Summersville, West Virginia to participate in Exercise Combined Resolve 24-2 at the Joint Multinational Readiness Center (JMRC) near Hohenfels, Germany, in order to prepare for designation as a contingency response force (CRF) next year.

According to the unit, the 821st is the first National Guard engineer unit to embed directly into the Combined Resolve exercise scenario.

As a horizontal construction company, the 821st focuses heavily on construction operations at home involving operating heavy equipment. The springtime often brings flooding to West Virginia that requires the capabilities of the 1092nd, the largest battalion in the state, to clear debris. The same goes for plowing snow across West Virginia in the wintertime. A large portion of the unit also works full-time with civilian heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, so they are excellent operators, according to U.S. Army Capt. Carl Boyles III, engineer officer and commander of the 821st.

“As far as proficiency of digging, they blew it out of the water [at Combined Resolve],” Boyles said.

By participating in Combined Resolve 24-2, the 821st embraced their designation as a CRF and explored the aspects of survivability operations in conjunction with maneuver elements and emplaced obstacles, berms and anti-tank ditches. The exercise afforded the opportunity to practice tactical convoys, camouflage, chaining and binding procedures, and safe nighttime operations. These real-world tactical scenarios are especially important for the unit’s junior Soldiers who may not have as much experience in these tasks as some of the older noncommissioned officers who have been with the unit for years.

U.S. Army Spc. Nicholas Fulford recently joined the 821st as a horizontal construction engineer. The two weeks that he spent at Combined Resolve 24-2 was his first ever annual training with the Army National Guard.

“To go to Germany was a definite eye-opener,” Fulford said. “Normally we do construction activities just with our unit, a company of 200 Soldiers. Now we have several thousand active duty, other branches of the military, and different countries as we are conducting [the 821st’s] defensive position.”

During their five consecutive days spent in the field, the unit experienced scenarios that ranged from utilizing their night vision goggles (NVGs) to view 30 to 40 helicopters flying overhead in the utter darkness of 2 a.m. to making battlefield preparations by digging 500-meter anti-tank ditches while the 1st Battalion, 4th Infantry Regiment provided a security detail.

“Training exercises like these are much needed,” Fulford said. “[This] opened up our eyes and put us in real-world stressful situations.”

Combined Resolve 24-2 is a recurring, collaborative and U.S.-led training exercise, designed to demonstrate multi-domain large scale combat operations between the U.S., allies and partner nations. Approximately 4,000 Soldiers from 16 nations participated in this event.