Lebanon resident Bradley Rank had several reasons he believed it was important to have the four children in his family participate in “Take Your Child to Work Day” activities at Fort Indiantown Gap on Thursday.
“For one, it’s good for them to understand what adult careers look like. With that one (Lillian), who is 16, she’s only got two years of school left, so we’re trying to get her a summer job,” said Rank, who works for the state Department of Veterans Affairs and is a National Guardsman based in Carlisle, Cumberland County. “But understanding what I do and what all the other people that work here do, and then seeing what the military side does too, it’s good for them to go and have those experiences.”
About 225 school-age children of Fort Indiantown Gap employees attended the program to see firsthand the jobs their parent do and to experience the vital services provided by the Lebanon County-based military installation, according to Brooke Bowers, a human resources specialist who organized the event, now in its fourth year.
Bowers said the students, who came from schools in Lebanon, Dauphin, Cumberland, and Schuylkill counties, attended four sessions during the morning portion of the program. Those individual experiences included:
- Combined Arms Collective Training Facility: Underground trainer that simulates urban combat environments.
- Unit Training Equipment Site (UTES): A facility responsible for maintaining and storing combat vehicles, engineer equipment, and wheeled vehicles, while providing operator maintenance support.
- Civil Support Team: Specialized units that train at the site to prepare for responding to chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear incidents.
- Simulators/simulated training: virtual training environments, including high-fidelity patient simulators for medics or range simulators.
During remarks made by Major General John Pippy, adjutant general of Pennsylvania, after a boxed lunch served to students and their parents, he asked children in the crowd what their favorite experience was during the sessions they attended. Not surprisingly, a majority said simulator training, which allowed them to fire virtual weapons.
“The shooting, OK. So, in about 15 years, remember that when we want you to sign up, OK?” quipped Pippy, eliciting laughter from adults in the audience.
Rank’s daughter Lillian said it was “very impressive what they all do here.”
“I liked looking at all the different things, like, seeing what all the different places, what everyone does and just seeing, like, the inside work of what happens here,” she said.
The second most popular answer was the UTES facility, where National Guardsmen work on military vehicles and gear in a garage large enough to house large-scale weapons and other massive vehicles used by service personnel in the field, during combat and while conducting training exercises.
The garage bay was filled with a variety of vehicles, Paladin tanks, and other military gear for students to see and experience up close and personally. Some handled weapons while others climbed in or, in some cases, on the equipment.
“So some of the questions that we often get, a lot of the time the kids want to know how fast it goes, how much it weighs, and what it shoots. Those are always the questions they ask,” said Sgt. Nicole Burgard. “And when we give the tour, we tend to be more interactive with it, where if we go over the M-1301 ISV, we ask, ‘How fast do you think this goes?’ And then kids will be like ‘120 miles an hour’. And then we crack a joke like, ‘Do you know how many soldiers would die if we let them go 100 miles an hour?’”
It’s a learning experience for young people who may not understand the scale of the equipment, which is kept in a secure area where few people tread.
“Or for example, understanding their concept of weight is amazing to me. The M8882 Hercules weighs 64 tons. But the kids say all the time, ‘three tons, 6,000 pounds. This weighs 6,000 pounds’. It’s amazing, and it just makes me laugh,” Burgard added, noting that vehicles of that nature aren’t even permitted on local roadways.
Sgt. Jesse Smith said he, as an employee in the UTES facility, gets as much out of the program as the students.
“I mean, I personally just love the enthusiasm of the children. That when they’re here, they get to see things that are, to us, an everyday-kind-of- thing,” said Smith. “And it becomes dull after a while after so many years, but when you see the little kids and their eyes light up when they see an ISV or a JLTV or the M88 A2 Hercules, it kind of puts a little bit of a spark back in you, you know what I mean?”
The UTES facility is a place where young people can experience how equipment is repaired and maintained, according to Sgt. Bryce Nettles. Vo-tech students have visited the center during recruitment events, and there are discussions about opening up the facility to more youngsters.
Read More: (Nov. 2024) Academy at Fort Indiantown Gap challeNGes teen participants
“We actually want to set something up soon with the Keystone (Academy) kids that are here on base, and have a program where they’d come down because my forte is fixing all the weapons that come in,” Nettles said. “We actually want to do a full day where we show them step-by-step how we look at the problem, show them what issues we’re looking at, and then how to actually fix the weapon moving forward.”
Other Academy students with an interest in maintenance careers go to the UTES facility once a week to learn more about the field.
On this day, the focus was on students whose ages range from 4 to 19, according to Bowers, and showing them the many career opportunities that exist in the military.
Prior to Pippy’s comments, six FTIG employees spoke briefly about their jobs, including a military police officer, administrative workers, a military lawyer, and a life-long service member who is a pilot and has 40 years of military service.
Pippy told the group why he believes this is an important activity.
“For the parents and the soldiers and airmen and the employees out of here, I just want you to know from bottom of my heart how much we really appreciate what you do. I also know that there are probably some people who say they were too busy to do this today,” he said. “When I see these kids, not only do I see a chance for us to brag about their parents, but I also see literally the future of why we do this. So hopefully we get bigger every year, because not only are you spending some time with your kids, but for us, you’re reinforcing why we do what we do.”
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