ROY – Two dozen soldiers huddle in the snow outside a sheep pen, calling out jokes to their comrade inside. The animals skitter back and forth as the soldier – a man trained to kill with all manner of high-tech weaponry – stomps his feet and hisses, trying to figure out how to drive the sheep in the desired direction.
At the other end of the arena a soldier and a military police dog stand ready to search out mock explosives. The dog, distracted by the flock, tugs excitedly at his leash as his handler barks orders to heel.
This is serious business, though: special training for wartime conditions. The soldiers with the 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, and the 51st Military Police Detachment know it could save their lives when they go back to Iraq next year.
Lt. Stuart Chapman of Richmond, Va., said he’s been around livestock “a little bit” but was unsure what to expect from the training.
“I didn’t really know what to think, honestly. I haven’t been overseas yet but apparently you have to deal with animals quite a bit,” Chapman said, standing outside a pen with his hands tucked in his jeans pockets and muddy stains on his pant legs from an earlier attempt at herding sheep.
Even with little experience around farm animals, Chapman has more than the average soldier, who often comes from a city or suburb and has never seen a sheep. Their primitive herding methods – waving their arms, yelling and shoving – met with little success.
“It’s important for us to know how to deal with them so that soldiers don’t get hurt, so the livestock doesn’t get hurt and so we don’t damage people’s property,” said Capt. Teddy Kleisner, a company commander with the 3rd Brigade – one of three Stryker armored vehicle units based at Fort Lewis, about 40 miles south of Seattle. The brigade is preparing for a second deployment next year.
“This is not something that’s in our comfort zone, which is why we’ve got to get into stuff like this.”
Knowing how to deal with livestock is also useful in maintaining good relations with Iraqis.
“It’s essential that there are Iraqis who are neutral or who are friends of the United States,” Kleisner said. “We don’t want to create enemies where enemies don’t exist.”
The soldiers’ recent visit to Ewe-topia, a 10-acre farm abutting Fort Lewis where dogs are trained to herd livestock, is an example of the diverse training being used as U.S. operations continue in Iraq.
“It was a really good experience to see how the dogs were going to react,” Military Police Sgt. Jodi Stone said after finishing a training session with her 21/2-year-old brindle shepherd, Bengo. “It’ll be good when we go over to Iraq.”
Stone, who previously served a year in Iraq but not with a canine unit, was pleasantly surprised at Bengo’s focus. The dog graduated in September from training school at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio.
The hands-on livestock training at Ewe-topia is the first of its kind at Fort Lewis, and for the Army, said Samantha Evans, spokeswoman for the Joint Readiness Training Center and Fort Polk in Louisiana.
The Army has an entire command dedicated to training and educating soldiers in ever-changing combat strategies. The U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command in Fort Monroe, Va., operates 33 schools and centers at 16 Army installations.
“We have a Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. They send teams into both Iraq and Afghanistan to observe conditions on the ground,” said Harvey Perritt, a civilian spokesman with the command.
One result was to have Iraqi immigrants play the role of villagers during urban combat training in the United States to make it more realistic.
The Ewe-topia program began after Kleisner visited the farm with a friend and saw a perfect training site.
“The terrain here is typical of Iraq in that it’s complex and asymmetric. It’s not organized. Things don’t completely make sense the way things are arranged,” Kleisner said.
Ewe-topia also provides the real sights – and smells – associated with livestock that soldiers wouldn’t get at Leschi Town, Fort Lewis’ new $19 million urban-combat training center, which has a farm setting but no animals.
“I can educate them on what a barnyard should look like, and what it would look like if somebody’s planted a bomb or something,” said Ewe-topia owner Joe Kapelos.
In recent years, Kleisner says he’s also seen more partnerships between the Army and surrounding communities.
“Five years ago, you never would have seen this,” he says of the soldiers’ drills at Ewe-topia. “You wouldn’t have seen it not just because the local community wasn’t into the United States Army but the United States Army didn’t see the necessity to get outside into the complexities that exist out here.”
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