Birthday Celebration at Perry Point VAMC, June 6, 2019
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June 13, 2019 • APG News B5 Photo by Clay Carnes with the Program Management Office of Army Aircraft Survivability Equipment, Huntsville, Alabama, left, adjusts the settings as Vietnam and Marine Corps veteran Bobby Hamlett takes a look at the Man-Portable Aircraft Survivability Trainer during the Army Birthday celebration at Perry Point VAMC, June 6, 2019. ment so our veterans can see what our Sol- BIRTHDAY diers do out in the field and lots of other people inside and at outside displays in the parking lot can talk about today’s Army and Continued from Page B1 what they do,” Kern said. She added that remarks from Finch and addition, a team of Soldiers from the Army VAMHCS Director Adam Robinson, along Test and Evaluation Command’s Aberdeen with a traditional Army Birthday cake-cut- Test Center, led by Staff Sgt. Alberto Rivera, ting by the youngest Soldier and oldest vet- displayed two Mine-Resistant Ambush Pro- eran present, along with the singing of the tected, or MRAP, vehicles. Army Song and refreshments would high- Supporting elements included elements light the program. of PEO IEW&S out of Huntsville, Alabama “It’s a wonderful day and we’re so grate- who displayed the MAST, short for Man- ful to APG for this third year and hopefully Portable Aircraft Survivability Trainer, a many more years to come.” missile launch simulator used for training Navy veteran Drake Hever said several military aircraft crews, and a tethered com- things caught his eye during the event. munications aerostat from Drone Aviation “They didn’t have any of this stuff while out of Jacksonville, Florida. I was in; if we’d had this stuff we’d have had Susan Kern, Perry Point VAMC program them beat,” he said. manager for voluntary services, said it was Vietnam and U.S. Marine Corps veteran the organizations’ third annual celebration at Bobby Hamlett said that for him it was an Perry Point VAMC patients and staff view a tethered communications aerostat the hospital. honor to celebrate the Army’s birthday. from Drone Aviation, Jacksonville, Florida, during the Army Birthday celebration “This celebration includes a lot of equip- “We all, in truth, are one,” he said. hosted by PEO IEW&S at the Perry Point VAMC, June 6, 2019. the RVCT-G also supports dismounted Sol- the service’s simulation trainers. It will be developer for the Synthetic Training Envi- PLATFORM dier training. accessible across the U.S. military’s train- ronment CFT. “Add the Training Manage- Putting the platforms together in a syn- ing platforms. Gervais said the Army expects ment Tool, and you now get to connect what thetic training environment will give Soldiers to meet initial operating capability require- [training goals] you planned for and actual- Continued from Page B1 a realistic, composite training environment ments by the fourth quarter of fiscal year ly get to measure that against what you actu- where exercises can be performed at any 2021 and full operational capability some- ally did, and that’s a huge part of being able contracts next month to further develop STE installation or training range, said Gervais. time in fiscal 2023. to collect that information and provide that platforms, she said. The Army Futures Com- The CFT hopes to rapidly expand the Army’s By the time the service achieves FOC information back to the Soldier not only mand will use the Other Transaction Author- virtual training simulations capabilities from for One World Terrain, it plans to also sup- objectively but also with their trainers so that ity, or OTA, to expedite acquisition and company to battalion levels and even up to port training in the synthetic training envi- they have the objective and the subjective fielding of the technologies, she said. Army component commands. ronment across each of its six warfighting information together.” The idea is for One World Terrain to be Soldiers have been giving CFT mem- functions: mission command, movement and Soldiers from the 10th Mountain Divi- used by all the different training simulation bers feedback on how the systems meet their maneuvering, intelligence, fires, sustainment sion were among the first to use the Squad platforms, including reconfigurable collec- needs and what aspects of the training needs and protection. Gervais said that four to five Advanced Marksmanship Trainer, an inter- tive trainers currently in development, she improvement. explained. installations will use the STE capability in im system being fielded at several installa- “We want to make sure that we’re provid- fiscal 2021 and then it will expand. tions that allows units to operate the M249 Over the past year, Gervais’ team has ing a capability that Soldiers will see as val- been assessing prototypes for aircraft, Three Army divisions and 24 Marine light machine gun, M4 carbine rifle and the ue added in the execution of their mission,” Corps battalions already have begun using M9 Beretta pistol in virtual training sessions. armored vehicles and infantry weapons sys- Gervais said. “To me, the most exciting part tems trainers. the One World Terrain capability. The Army’s “The 10th Mountain Light Fighters is they are now taking ownership of this. National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Cal- School actually looked at this capability and In April, Soldiers at Fort Carson, Colo- Once those Soldiers on the ground and the rado, tested a platform for aviation training ifornia, has used OWT as well as one third immediately saw that it was an improvement units and the leaders on the ground know its of U.S. Special Forces units. The 7th Special over their engagement skill trainer,” Gervais called the Reconfigurable Virtual Collective value added to their mission, they are going Forces Group from Eglin Air Force Base, said. “They were using it in their actual pro- Trainer-Air. to use this.” And, M2 Bradley and Stryker crews have Florida, used One World Terrain while fly- gram of instruction to train others and now been testing another prototype -- the Recon- One World capabilities ing drones at the NTC. have quickly incorporated that into program figurable Virtual Collective Trainer-Ground, The One World Terrain prototype is a “The One World Terrain allows them to of instructions because they understand the at Fort Riley, Kansas. In addition to replicat- database that will bring a 3-D representa- go anywhere in the world and conduct that value and how that’s going to increase the ing the range of the Army’s ground vehicles, tion of global training scenarios for each of training,” said Kevin Hellman, capabilities lethality.” DID YOU KNOW? the Declaration of Independence, is said to have The Stars and Stripes was designed the 1777 flag while he was the Chairman adopted by Congress as the of the Continental Navy Board’s Middle Department, sometime between his appointment to that position Flag of the United States, June in November 1776 and the time that the flag 14, 1777. resolution was adopted in June 1777. Not only did Hopkinson claim that he designed the U.S. flag, On this date - which eventually became known as Flag but he also claimed that he designed a flag for the Day - the Second Continental Congress passed the Flag U.S. Navy. Hopkinson was the only person to have Resolution which stated: “Resolved, That the flag of the made such a claim during his own lifetime, when thirteen United States be thirteen stripes, alternate red and he sent a letter and several bills to Congress for his white; that the union be thirteen stars, white in a blue field, work. These claims are documented in the Journals representing a new constellation.” The stars represented the 13 Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org of the Continental Congress and George Hasting’s biography of Hopkinson. colonies, established as: Delaware, Dec. 7, 1787; Pennsylvania, The Hopkinson Flag. Francis Hopkinson The origin of the stars and stripes design has been Dec. 12, 1787; New Jersey, Dec. 18, 1787; Georgia, Jan. 2, claimed to have created the first official flag muddled by a story disseminated by the descendants 1788; Connecticut, Jan. 9, 1788; Massachusetts, Feb. 6, 1788; of the United States. However, Congress of Betsy Ross, which credits Ross for sewing the first Maryland, April 28, 1788; South Carolina, May 23, 1788; New refused him this title based on the fact that flag from a pencil sketch handed to her by George Hampshire, June 21, 1788; Virginia, June 25, 1788; New York, multiple people contributed to the design. Washington. No evidence for this exists either in the July 26, 1788; North Carolina, Nov. 21, 1789; and Rhode Island, Hopkinson’s design used a staggered pat- diaries of George Washington nor in the records of May 29, 1790. tern of 3-2-3-2-3 using six-pointed Marian the Continental Congress. Ross’ grandson, William While scholars still argue about this, tradition holds that the stars. This creates an optical effect of the Canby, first publicly suggested the story in 1870 but new flag was first hoisted in June 1777 by the Continental Army crosses used in the British flag. at the Middlebrook encampment – the seasonal encampment by her family’s own admission, Ross ran an upholstery of the Continental Army in Bridgewater Township, New Jersey. business, and she had never made a flag as of the On Aug. 3, 1777, the first official U.S. flag was flown during a battle, at Fort supposed visit in June 1776. Furthermore, her grandson admitted that his own Schuyler, a colonial fortress in upstate New York, originally known as Fort Stanwix search through the Journals of Congress and other official records failed to find and remembered for the Siege of Fort Stanwix.