 First Lieutenant Tanner Oxer, I'm with Apex Battery 282FA. So today we're out here supporting our brother and sister battalions during their combined arms live fire exercise, Cal Fex for short. We just provide their artillery fire for their maneuvers, whether that be breaches, FPFs, anything of that nature, just to make sure they're taken care of. The smear evidence of it is it's a true test of all of our systems. It's a test between the forward observers, the fisters, battalion, us, our communications equipment, our fires equipment, all of it has to work together pretty seamlessly to make everything work out just right. So I am a platoon leader, first platoon in Apex Company, and along with my smoke I'm an overall organizer and supervisor. I run between the FDC Fire Direction Center and the guns, making sure that everything is going smoothly. If there are any issues, I make sure that I'm at that point of friction as well as my platoon sergeant, just to make sure everything goes as it should. We have already been through an entire artillery table progression all the way from table one all the way through table fifteen. So we've had true tests of section, which is table five and six. We've had platoon training, which is tables eleven and twelve, and then we've had battery training, which is fourteen and fifteen. So we've fired a lot here in the past, probably six months, making sure that everything was good to go and our chiefs are good and certified. And now we're just out here putting it all to use. I think the goal of this training is just to show that everybody can work together, form a pretty lethal force without too many hiccups along the way. Honestly the guys, thirteen bravos and Julietts, they're characters for sure. You've got to be a little bit goofy to be in artillery and it always works out, you're always having a good time. You know there's a lot of weight in, so you get to know everybody pretty well. Self-propelled howitzer system. So it's a 155mm, it's the same as the triple seven, round wise, except it can move itself, it doesn't require towing or spade digging or anything like that. All you do is pull up, get on azimuth, occupy the position, get dry fire verified through the FDC and you're ready to fire. I think specifically the Alpha 7, our digital systems are leaps and bounds ahead of where they were with the Alpha 6. It just makes things really easy. Now that's not to say we don't train degraded, we train degraded every week, every other week, but the Paladin it just makes life really simple, really easy. Everything you need is right there on the screen that the Chief is looking at. I'm Sergeant Katelyn Wilson, I'm assigned to 2A2FA, I'm a section chief for Alpha 1-2. Today, this week we've been doing a califex, land protective fire over another battalion's movement, way down, wherever they are, just basically making sure they can maneuver safely and if you're never treated, have to or assault through. It's a great training to conduct for multiple reasons, number one, we've got to make sure the infantry guys down there are able to maneuver and get around where they need to be. We have the ability to shoot a loom round, so if it's too dark or they can't actually see, we can shoot a loom over the sky so they can see through the night. If they need to smoke out of the area, we can lay a suppressive willy-peak, just making sure that it keeps the enemy shook up and not know what's going on next. I'm serving as a section chief and I'm here to verify data, I'm here to make sure each round and fuse is correctly placed into the tube and into the breach and overall making sure my guys practice safety 100% and have a good time. This is training right now but training can lead on to the real world. So it's a four-man crew, my driver, he makes sure we can get on azimuth and he leads us to where we need to go. He has a special little navigation system going on in there. My number one man, he makes sure that the breach gets primed, most of his time is conducted maintenance but in a fire mission scenario he makes sure that the round gets loaded properly and primed and he also hooks the lanyard and pulls the string. I have my gunner behind me, he loads the charges, other than loading the charges he kind of is a secondary verification for me, making sure I'm verifying the data correctly and everyone's a safety. So we need to be able to do our crew drills properly, shoot rounds safely, communicate with our FDC and battalion effectively that making sure we're not shooting too close to friendly whether it's our guys or other allies.