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HomeNewsStrike CAV Spouses participate in Spouse Spur Ride

Strike CAV Spouses participate in Spouse Spur Ride

Written by Spc. Shawn Denham
PAO, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)

Fort Campbell KY, 101st Airborne Division2nd Brigade Combat Team - Strike

Fort Campbell, KY – The Army encourages its Soldiers and family members to bond together through activities and events designed to promote camaraderie and understanding within each family. The 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) also promotes family bonds throughout its battalions and squadron.

Spouses of Soldiers from Strike Brigade’s 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, attended a ‘Spouse Spur Ride’ at Fort Campbell, November 18th.

Molli Igou, wife of Spc. Eduardo Mendez with 1st Squadron 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), charges a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun during the ‘Spouse Spur Ride’ at Fort Campbell, KY, Nov. 18th. Weapons familiarization was one of several events meant to demonstrate to the spouses what their husbands do on a daily basis. (U.S. Army Photo By Spc. Shawn Denham, PAO, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div.)
Molli Igou, wife of Spc. Eduardo Mendez with 1st Squadron 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), charges a Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun during the ‘Spouse Spur Ride’ at Fort Campbell, KY, Nov. 18th. Weapons familiarization was one of several events meant to demonstrate to the spouses what their husbands do on a daily basis. (U.S. Army Photo By Spc. Shawn Denham, PAO, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div.)

“Army spouses have many ways they show their support for their husbands,” said Sasha Stone, a native of Griffin, IN and wife of 1st Sgt. Nathan Stone, with Troop A.  “This is my way of showing support to my husband and Apache Troop.”

“The events were designed to simulate the Spur Ride that Strike-Cav Soldiers go through to earn their prestigious silver spurs,” said Spc. Kolton Spicer, a Cavalry Scout with Troop A, 1-75th and a native of Somerville, TN, helping setup and run the event. “This is a good way to build bonds between families and the unit. Everything has been toned down a bit compared to what the Soldiers go through, but it will still give their wives a good idea of what our job is like.”

Amanda Henry, wife of Capt. Devin Henry with 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), tosses ropes in an obstacle course challenge during the ‘Spouse Spur Ride’ at Fort Campbell, KY, Nov. 18th. Strike CAV hosted the event to bring Soldiers and families together, building camaraderie. (U.S. Army Photo By Spc. Shawn Denham, PAO, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div.)

Activities such as an informal physical training session, obstacle course and rope climb got the group of about 40-wives warmed up for the challenges ahead. From there they split into several groups of smaller size to rotate through stations where Soldiers presented them with training missions. At one station, a group of wives went over the basic operations of the Browning M2 .50 caliber machine gun. There, the spouses cooperated together to work the heavy machinery and pass the functions test.

“This is a harder than it looks,” said Molli Igou, Family Readiness Group co-leader and native of Clarksville, TN, and wife of Spc. Eduardo Mendez of Troop B. “I didn’t expect it to be so hard to charge a gun.”

The spouses also conducted functions tests on the M-240B machine gun and pushed a military vehicle several meters as if on a recovery mission.

Sasha Stone, wife of 1st Sgt. Nathan Stone, with Troop A, 1st Squadron, 75th Cavalry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), climbs a rope during the squadron’s ‘Spouse Spur Ride’ at Fort Campbell, KY, Nov. 18th. Spouses went through multiple challenges such as an obstacle course and weapons familiarization to build bonds between themselves and their husbands. (U.S. Army Photo By Spc. Shawn Denham, PAO, 2nd BCT, 101st Abn. Div.)

Other stations included a trip to the Electronic Skills Trainer, where the spouses fired simulated weapons during a video training session. Later, Spouses low-crawled through grass and pine needles to an over-watch position to radio a report on the activities of Soldiers posing as enemy combatants. Throughout each event the spouses of Strike-Cav worked together, encouraged each other and achieved their goals.

“We had a great turnout today,” said Maj. Diogo Tavares, the operations officer with the squadron’s Headquarters and Headquarters Troop and a native of Hillside, NJ, and coordinator for the spur ride. “It’s great that these wives have come out to show their support.”

This event was modeled after a previous ‘Spouse Spur Ride’ held before Strike Brigade’s last deployment, which focused on bringing the Strike-Cav family closer together.

“Today represents team building; the husbands are already close because of their camaraderie and combat and working with each other every day,” said Tavares. “This is an opportunity to extend that to the spouses and allow them to do the same thing and work together to get to know each other. This is definitely successful and I hope to see more like it.”

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