Army immerses soldiers in weaponry
By MICHAEL FELBERBAUM, Associated Press Writer Sat Aug 26, 3:14 PM ET
PETERSBURG, Va. - In the early months of the war in
Iraq, Army Spc. Paul J. Sturino was getting ready for guard duty one day when another soldier accidentally fired a bullet into his neck.
"Somehow it went off," his mother Christine Wetzel said as she recounted the official reports documenting her 21-year-old son's death on Sept. 22, 2003.
"I just think we're sending young, young people into situations that they're not ready for," she said from her home in Rice Lake, Wis. "They're inexperienced with weapons. ... Things happen and we pay the price."
The Army has begun taking steps to reduce accidental discharges through a new weapons immersion program fully implemented this year throughout the Army's 16 training facilities.
Sturino, assigned to the 101st Airborne Division based at Fort Campbell, Ky., was one of 21 soldiers killed by accidental discharges in the combat zones of Iraq and
Afghanistan since 2003, according to the Army's Combat Readiness Center. Eighty-nine others were injured.
"Losing one U.S. soldier because of a negligent discharge or not handling the weapon right is one too many," said Col. Paul Fortune, commander of the 23rd Quartermaster Brigade at Fort Lee, near Petersburg and 25 miles south of Richmond.
Under the new program, "We put the weapon in the hands of the soldier as soon as possible to give them an opportunity to be familiar with how the weapon operates," Fortune said.
Soldiers receive their M-16 rifles — and blank ammunition — on the third day of training and keep it with them for the next six to 12 weeks, depending on the length of training. The only time they do not have their weapons is when they enter chapels or clinics, or when the rifles are checked in for the weekend.
It's part of the "train as you fight" mentality that the Army hopes will keep soldiers safe.
Soldiers such as Pvt. Kenneth Dykeman, 21, of Portland, Ore., carry their gun to class, physical training and even have it nearby as they sleep. At night, Dykeman keeps his weapon under his mattress, with the rifle's magazine in his locker.
"Most likely we're going to Iraq, and when we get there, if you don't handle your weapon during training, you're going to forget," Dykeman said. "It helps you get closer to your weapon, know the characteristics, know what your rifle can do, so when you're out there in the field, you know how to keep yourself safe."
The program is significantly reducing negligent discharges, said Col. Kevin A. Shwedo, director of operations, plans and training for the Army Accessions Command. The average company used to experience about five negligent discharges every four hours. Now, he said, "if you hear a single discharge, that's a lot."
Even in the training environment, soldiers are required to keep a round of ammunition in their chambers and clear their guns before entering any building. Metal barrels filled with sand rest slanted on sandbags outside every building for soldiers to clear their weapons.
"It's a constant practice to teach them these rules and responsibilities," Fortune said before checking weapons at random in the cafeteria. "We want to teach them that there is no such thing as the front line."
In recent years, the only time soldiers at Fort Lee would see their weapons was when they practiced shooting. Commanders say the change reflects the need for soldiers to be ready to engage in the military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And Wetzel, who lost her son, agrees with that logic.
"I wholly endorse more contact with those weapons under safe circumstances ... to have more exposure to that weapon and more safety training," Wetzel said, adding that both of her sons had only one week of total weapon training when they entered the Army. "It should be second nature: safety first."
It took the Army until early 2005 to "come up with enough horsepower" to implement the program, Shwedo said. Officials ran into road blocks including finding enough weapons, ammunition and supplies, and Cold War-era regulations against putting weapons on training bases, he said.
"We have got to prepare every soldier for the possibility that they would go immediately in to fight," Shwedo said.
The program is part of the Army's new initiative to make training more relevant and apply lessons learned from troops coming back from deployment.
"We save lives every day that we train soldiers how to properly handle their weapons," he said.
