{"id":41555,"date":"2014-07-16T04:00:58","date_gmt":"2014-07-15T18:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/?p=41555"},"modified":"2014-07-16T04:00:58","modified_gmt":"2014-07-15T18:00:58","slug":"guam-guard-1224th-esc-selected-honor-company","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/guam-guard-1224th-esc-selected-honor-company\/","title":{"rendered":"Guam Guard 1224th ESC is selected as Honor Company"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The 1224th Engineer Support Company of the Guam National Guard was selected as Honor Company for the 14th Engineer Battalion during Rotation 14-08, an exercise in support of the 2-2 Stryker Brigade Combat Team\u2019s pre-deployment training.<\/p>\n<p>According to Lt. Col. Douglas E. Brown, commander, 14th Engineer Battalion, the Guam soldiers stood out for their get it done attitude. &#8220;The 1224th Engineer Support Company from Guam is a very dependable and flexible unit. They are always on time and at the right location. As a result of their performance and positive attitude, I selected them to be the Honor Company for my battalion during NTC Rotation 14-08. It was pleasure to have them on the team.&#8221;<\/p>\n<div id='gallery-1' class='gallery galleryid-41555 gallery-columns-4 gallery-size-thumbnail'><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/guam-guard-1224th-esc-selected-honor-company\/guam-guard-pix1\/'>Guam Guard pix1<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-41558'>\n\t\t\t\tSoldiers from the 1224th ESC pose for a group photo following the successful conclusion of Rotation 14-08 at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. Photo provided for the Guam National Guard.\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/guam-guard-1224th-esc-selected-honor-company\/guam-guard-pix3\/'>Guam Guard pix3<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-41559'>\n\t\t\t\tSoldiers conduct preventive vehicle maintenance during daily operations in support of Rotation 14-08 at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. (MAJ JOSEPHINE BLAS\/GUAM NATIONAL GUARD)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/guam-guard-1224th-esc-selected-honor-company\/guam-guard-pix7\/'>Guam Guard pix7<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-41561'>\n\t\t\t\tSoldiers from the 1224th ESC provide force protection during Rotation 14-08 at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. (MAJ JOSEPHINE BLAS\/GUAM NATIONAL GUARD)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure><figure class='gallery-item'>\n\t\t\t<div class='gallery-icon '>\n\t\t\t\t<a href='https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/guam-guard-1224th-esc-selected-honor-company\/guam-guard-pix9\/'>Guam Guard pix9<\/a>\n\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<figcaption class='wp-caption-text gallery-caption' id='gallery-1-41563'>\n\t\t\t\tSergeant First Class Jeffrey Santos takes a break between missions during Rotation 14-08 at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California. (MAJ JOSEPHINE BLAS\/GUAM NATIONAL GUARD)\n\t\t\t\t<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\n<p>Approximately 100 soldiers of the 1224th ESC spent nearly three weeks at the National Training Center, Fort Irwin, California, providing horizontal engineering support and force protection, while receiving training collectively on various engineer and support tasks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI am very proud of the soldiers. We had the least equipment, but completed the most missions, while pulling our own security\u2014no other engineer company did this,\u201d said Capt. Melvin Pilarca, commander of the 1224 ESC.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe soldiers were prepared and worked collectively to ensure we completed the missions on time, with no major injuries, sick calls or negligent discharges; no loss of sensitive items and no accidents. Despite the extremely hot and dry conditions, we also had no heat casualties,\u201d said Pilarca.<\/p>\n<p>Sergeant First Class Jeffrey Santos, a 33-year veteran and original charter member of the Guam National Guard, felt that it was good training. \u201cThis is the first time that the Engineers participated in this type of exercise and I love it! Because the changing environments and situations present a lot of challenges, the soldiers have had to learn to adapt to get the mission done.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Santos, a horizontal construction engineer, said they also had to react to random enemy attacks. \u201cThis training gave the soldiers the real-world training they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The 1224th ESC was the only Engineer unit to bring soldiers with engineer skill sets, but they also brought their own security. Specialist Rita Taitano, from Hotel Company, was part of the team to provide security for the soldiers while they were working to perform engineering functions. \u201cThis exercise is similar to some of the missions we did while in Afghanistan. It\u2019s good to keep our skills up to par and to learn how to work with different units.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe desert training environment allows us to use skills as medics to help the soldiers battle the cold nights, as well as the dry, hot days,\u201d according to Specialist Nelson Soliva. \u201cBasically, it was priceless training for us\u2014we learned to help them stay in the fight.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>After a successful annual training, the 1224th ESC is hoping to continue similar training opportunities to help the unit grow and stay ready. <em>(PR)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The 1224th Engineer Support Company of the Guam National Guard was selected as Honor Company&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":41558,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[495,51],"class_list":["post-41555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","tag-afghanistan","tag-guam"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41555"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41555\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/41558"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.saipantribune.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}