2024 D-Series Winter Challenge reflects
10th Mountain Division's focus on alpine
Mike Strasser
Fort Drum Garrison Public Affairs
FORT DRUM, N.Y. (Jan. 22, 2024) – Snow? Check.
Temperatures? Low.
Motivation? High.
All the conditions were optimal for the fifth iteration of the D-Series Winter Challenge, Jan. 18-19, at Fort Drum, where 27 nine-Soldier teams competed in a series of graded alpine training events, including casualty evacuation, cold-weather mobility, and survival fire.
Maj. Sam Colby, 10th Mountain Division (LI) Special Operations Forces planner, promised the teams that this would be a memorable experience.
“This is unlike other D-Series we’ve had in the past,” he said. “You will remember this one.”
With snow falling on cue as teams made their way out of the Rapid Deployment Facility, Soldiers tackled one challenge after another to demonstrate their ability to maneuver in the extreme cold and complete tasks using their mountaineering equipment. (See related story at www.dvidshub.net/news/462121/10th-mountain-division-conducts-d-series-xxiv-marching-footsteps-their-forefathers.)
After establishing an overnight bivouac in the training area, only the top nine teams continued on Day Two. At the rappelling site, Soldiers tested their ability to move personnel and equipment through a vertical mobility lane using a suspension traverse system.
“When talking about mountaineering in cold-weather operations, one of the most important factors is mobility,” said 1st Sgt. Dan Fields, Light Fighters School first sergeant. “Whether you are evacuating casualties off of a ridge, such as the division did in Italy, or bringing up resupply of ammunition, food and water, mobility in the mountains is crucial.”
Fields said that lesson was reinforced every step of the way during D-Series as Soldiers determined the most expedient way to traverse the course.
“Most Soldiers are pretty familiar with rappelling and climbing a fixed line, but what they experience during D-Series is essentially a more complex system to move personnel and equipment over a more complex terrain,” he said.
When the D-Series competition was organized in 2020, it was a nod toward the 10th Mountain Division’s origins and an homage to the military mountaineers who endured the crucible of the first D-Series at Camp Hale, Colorado. While the event continues to honor the past, it has also become a reflection of the division’s future with a focus on training Soldiers in cold-weather, alpine skill sets.
“Maj. Gen. (Gregory) Anderson and Command Sgt. Maj. (Nema) Mobar believe strongly in the … alpine initiative, and they provided a lot of input on this training event,” Colby said. “Making it an overnight, with teams moving several miles throughout the course over 28 hours, depending how fast they go, the Soldiers are going to be challenged.”
Colby said there is flexibility built into this year’s competition that was lacking in previous years. While they were solid training events designed within a linear course, this iteration required squad leaders to determine their own course of action for tackling the training lanes.
“One of the challenges with any training event is to provide an opportunity for junior leaders to exercise their authority,” he said, “because you try to control as many variables as possible to achieve the training objectives. We structured this event in a way so squad leaders can make choices based on the conditions in front of them.”
The D-Series is intended to be both a competition and a rallying event for division Soldiers, whether they are infantry, military police, sustainment, or aviation, to demonstrate their ability to perform tasks to standard under austere conditions.
“When you talk about developing the alpine culture, the idea is that Soldiers are going to thrive in whatever environment we put them in, anywhere in the world,” he said. “Maj. Gen. Anderson wants our Soldiers to be ready to do that and to know they have the capability, the equipment and the training to do that.”
Anderson said the original 10th Mountain Division Soldiers experienced their first battle on Riva Ridge in Italy during World War II, and they trained nearly two years to thrive in that environment and to develop the specific capabilities to achieve what was deemed impossible.
Their proficiency in mountaineering and military tactics enabled them to defend the ridge from counterattack and then go beyond the mountains to fight in other terrain as they made their way across the Po Valley.
He told Soldiers that they may never scale something as perilous as Riva Ridge or be tasked to conquer a fortified mountain at night.
“But we don’t know what our Riva Ridge is going to be,” he said. “You don’t know what Riva Ridge will be erected for you to overcome with your team. We are all going to get one. It won’t look like it did in Italy, but it will be a challenge. We are building the Mountain Alpine into Light Infantry that creates the type of Soldiers and leader that will overcome whatever Riva Ridge comes our way. And that’s what we are doing here today.”