Latham man earns Expert Soldier Badge
A New York Army National Guard soldier from Latham is among the first from our state who has earned a new Army elite skill badge.
Spc. William Neumeister was among the first four New York Army National Guard soldiers who earned the new Expert Soldier Badge during a series of tests in a course conducted by the 10th Mountain Division at Fort Drum. They are among 950 active Army, Army National Guard and Army Reserve soldiers who have earned the badge nationwide. Only 19 percent of 5,000 soldiers who have sought the badge have passed the course to date, according to an Army Training and Doctrine Command spokesman.
The Expert Soldier Badge joins the Expert Infantry Badge and the Expert Field Medic Badge as a special-skills badge that soldiers must earn through a demanding testing program.
The ESB session run by the 10th Mountain Division allocated two weeks for the skill badge evaluation. The first week gave soldiers a chance to review the skills and then master them with handson training. The second week was the testing phase.
“The New York Guard soldiers arrived at Fort Drum days early so they could get a jump on the training and then they resolved to work together throughout the program,” said Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Blount, a human resource specialist who acted as the team captain. “Once we got there and we saw what it was all about and how challenging it was, it was pretty clear we were going to succeed or fail as a group,” said Blount.
The soldiers had to successfully complete 30 soldier and combat tasks, qualify an experts on their individual weapons, complete a physical fitness assessment, complete day and night land navigation courses and complete a timed 12-mile foot march carrying a pack and weapon. The tasks were broken down into three lanes: weapons tasks, medical tasks and patrol tasks, which involve things like map reading, transmitting a spot report and emplacing a Claymore mine.
Neumeister, a signals intelligence analyst, said he signed up for the ESB competition when his chance to go to Air Assault School — the Army course that trains soldiers to deploy from helicopters — fell through.
Going to the ESB competition at Fort Drum was Neumeister’s last official act as a member of the New York Army Guard and his former unit, the 10th Main Command Post Operational Detachment. The MCPOD is a unit that supplements the 10th Mountain Division headquarters when that unit deploys. The 10th MCPOD deployed to the Middle East with the 10th Mountain Division headquarters in 2018.
He now has a new military mission and assignment. He will soon serve as a full-time intelligence analyst after he transfers to the Colorado Army National Guard’s 19th Special Forces Group.
“Earning the ESB has been a real confidence booster,” Neumeister said as he moves into a fulltime job with the highly specialized unit in Denver.
Regarding the ESB course, he said, the biggest challenge for him was learning a new skill, becoming an expert on it and then “completely brain dump” the information and master something else.
“I usually carry a notebook with me and in two years in the Army I have filled in ten pages,” he said. “I filled that up immediately. My hand is a lot stronger now from taking notes, with how much I had to write,” he
joked.
The medical lane was purely memorization: how to treat a casualty for a spinal injury and shock, how to control bleeding, how to treat an abdominal wound, he said. The weapons testing involved disassembling and reassembling the weapons with correct steps. The patrol lane involved thinking through the tasks, he said.
“It was a lot of work, but it was a lot of fun,” he said. “I’d never touched a Mark-19 (grenade launcher). I never touched a 50-caliber machine gun. It was fun studying up, and recognizing, and getting used to the sequences,” he said.
Veterans honored
Albany County Executive Daniel P. Mccoy will recognize two people who have bravely served our country at 10 a.m. Thursday, Nov. 4, at Crossgates Mall in Guilderland, on the first floor near 110 Grill.
The honorees are: Penny Lee Deere, who enlisted in the Army at the age of 19 and served in the Gulf War. When she wasn’t on active duty, she founded Mindbodysoulpenny, Support Our Troops/art4vets, and Listening Library, all of which are programs to help veterans deal with PTSD and other issues after service.
Hartley “Willie” Williams, an 87-year-old veteran who enlisted in the Air Force at the age of 19 and served in the Korean War. His service specialty was airborne electronics navigation equipment repair. He moved to Antigua, where he was the Rotary president, and later returned to Albany County to live out his retirement with his wife.
College exhibit
Hudson Valley Community College will hold its “Pride of Our Nation ... Pride of Our College” exhibition from Saturday, Nov. 6, to Dec. 7. The exhibition of military photos and memorabilia loaned by faculty, staff and students will be in the Troy Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Atrium on the first floor of the Marvin Library at the Troy campus.
Army Col. Earl B. Schonberg, Watervliet
Arsenal commander, will be guest speaker during a reception from 1 to 5 p.m. in the Marvin Library Learning Common.
“Pride of Our Nation ... Pride of Our College,” a collaborative effort on the part of employees from several departments, is an ever-changing collection of photographs (both official and family) and memorabilia of veterans and active military service members with a connection to the college, according to Alice Malavasic, associate professor of American history in the Department of Education and Social Sciences, who organized the first exhibition in 2010. There was no display in 2020 due to the COVID -19 pandemic.
Library hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday to Friday, except Nov. 24, 25 and 26, when the campus is closed for the Thanksgiving holiday.
Dog rescues
Operation at Ease, a nonprofit that rescues shelter dogs and trains the canines to become service dogs for military personnel, veterans, police and first responders, will benefit from a Mystery Dinner Theatre at 6 p.m. Nov. 18, at the Rivers Casino and Resort in Schenectady for the benefit of the organization.
A silent auction, an Italian buffet dinner and an interactive “Crime and Punishment: Who Dunn It” performed by the national troupe the Murder Mystery Company are planned. For information, contact Joni Bonilla at (518) 847-9941 or Marta Mosher at (843) 267-8474.