Hooah!
“Hooah” is an expression used by members of the United States Army that has a plethora of meanings: “I understand” or “message received” such as in: “Delta 6, this is Romeo 6, do you copy, over”. Soldier response: “Romeo 6, this is Delta 6, hooah!” “Outstanding” such as in: “Gentlemen, today we are going to go out and run 15 miles with our rucksacks on” Soldier response: “Hooah”.
Or when nothing else really seems appropriate like: “Soldier you’ve just stepped on an M-16 Bouncing Betty Mine. Whatever you do don’t move”. Soldier response: “Hooah”.
It can even have darker meanings such as what one soldier might say to another soldier in the middle of a fire fight: “We are in some deep Hooah now”. In this case “hooah” accurately describes a recent “outstanding” experience for several Apollo, Inc. team members. On March 7th, Apollo employees working on the Modified Digital Multipurpose Range Project convoyed three CAT 631 D scrapers 21 miles across the Yakima Training Center from the Multipurpose Range Complex (MPRC) to the “Engineer Dig Site”, a training area for Army Engineers. For the next two days Apollo personnel trained the Washington Army National Guard‟s 286th Engineer Company (Horizontal) on the maintenance and operation of Wheel Tractor-Scrapers*. The unit's wartime mission includes the construction of roads, airfields and helipads within a Theater of Operations (such as in Iraq or Afghanistan).
A newly formed unit in the National Guard has not yet received all of the essential equipment it needs to accomplish its horizontal construction mission. Despite this minor dilemma a portion of the unit‟s soldiers are still required to be qualified on scraper maintenance and operation. Because of the similarities between Apollo‟s CAT 631 scrapers and the CAT 621 scrapers that the unit will eventually receive, the Apollo scrapers provided these soldiers with the avenue for valuable hands-on training.
Apollo employees Terry Roth (Apollo‟s Equipment Manager), Eric Vanzandt (an Apollo Heavy Equipment Mechanic) and Don Constantine (Apollo Project Manager) trained the soldiers on preventative maintenance procedures, safety, and operation. For several of the soldiers this was the first time they had actually had the opportunity to operate a scraper. Although several were apprehensive at first, by the end of the second day every soldier was operating with confidence.
Their training even included Push Cat operations, using an Army Engineer CAT D7 dozer to push the scrapers through the cut.
The unit‟s top Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO) 1sg Bruce Eccelstone (from Kennewick) said that the training provided by Apollo was the highlight of the unit‟s training weekend. “It was all the soldiers talked about in their AAR (After Action Review)” he stated. It definitely proved to be a positive experience for everyone involved. The soldiers received outstanding training, and Apollo once again had the opportunity to "Do it for the Troops."
By Don Constantine