Festus RSP Soldiers learn "perishable skill" of land navigation

Sgt. 1st Class James McClarney teaches a National Guard recruit how to "shoot an azimuth" with a compass during land navigation drills at the Festus Armory.

By Bill Phelan
Ngmo.pao@US.ARMY.MIL

FESTUS, Mo. - For a Soldier, knowing where you are on the battlefield can mean the difference between living and dying. Thus, knowing how to use a compass can keep a Soldier alive provided the Soldier maintains the skill of land navigation.

For that reason, Soldiers in the Missouri National Guard's Recruit Sustainment Program are repeatedly drilled in the use of a compass and other land navigation techniques.

Recruit sustainment provides new Guard recruits with lessons in basic soldiering skills before they leave for basic Army training.

Program Soldiers of G Company, based at the Festus Armory, were the latest to get the "land-nav" message from their noncommissioned officers.

"Land navigation is a very perishable skill," emphasized Sgt. 1st Class James McClarney. "If you don't practice all the time you will forget it. That's why we reinforce this skill over and over again."

In addition to learning how to plot an azimuth, a survey of distance, Soldiers are also drilled in setting a pace count.

"When you're moving from one point to another, you use the compass to shoot an azimuth to determine the distance and that's where your pace count comes in," McClarney explained.

"If you're told to go 200 meters in a certain direction you have to know how far 200 meters is," added Sgt. 1st Class Reggie Hunt. "That's what a pace count is all about. There may be eight objectives at various distances and if I tell you to find the one that's 200 meters away, once you have the (azimuth) you have to know how far to go before you stop. It's not a march. You walk very naturally as if you were walking home from the store. If you panic, you will shorten your steps and you'll come up short of the objective."

To that end, each Soldier is taught to establish a pace to which they can accurately determine when they have walked 100 meters.

Each sergeant points out that land navigation skills are especially valuable in featureless terrain, such as the deserts of Iraq.

"You could find yourself in a situation where your compass is every bit as valuable as your rifle, if not more so," McClarney said.


For more information about the Missouri National Guard, please call 1-800-GoGuard or visit www.moguard.com.

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For more information about this release, please contact UPAR Bill Phelan at 314-416-1868 or cell, 314-556-5428 or e-mail bill.phelan@us.army.mil .