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Training period begins for Arrowhead Brigade

May-23-2008 » Filed Under: 3/2 SBCT

By Rachel Young, Northwest Guardian

The Arrowhead Brigade is reset ­— and ready to roll.

The reset period has drawn to a close for 3rd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division and the training period has begun in earnest. For the last several months, 3rd Bde., 2nd Inf. Div. has been “rebuilding the foundation,” according to Col. David Funk, brigade commander. What the Army calls the reset period, Funk prefers to call a “regeneration” because it better describes the complex period.

With that in mind, he chose the theme of rebuilding the foundation because he likens the reset period to building a house. “If you want to go out and build a house, you can go ahead and throw your walls up, and put the roof on, and put pretty shutters on it, and paint it up really nice, but the first stiff wind that comes by, that thing is going to collapse on you,” Funk said. “You always start out with the foundation.”

For 3rd Brigade Command Sgt. Maj. Alan Bjerke, the personnel change over was one of the biggest challenges, he said.

“When you do a reset, really, you’re going to lose a lot of your senior leadership — they change out,” Bjerke said. And the Arrowhead Brigade experienced that, with a turnover of about 50 percent of the senior NCOs from sergeant first class to sergeant major, Funk said.

“About 50 percent of the resident expertise of this brigade left, and we had new blood come in,” he said. Five out of six battalion commanders and most of the command sergeants major also changed over during the regeneration. While it took some time to for the brigade’s Soldiers to get used to the new blood, Bjerke and Funk are both confident in the talent and quality of the new leadership.

It took about 90 days to get “everyone pointing north,” Bjerke said. “But we’re there now.” [...]


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