Signal Stakes
MAPEX | Tactical | Nontactical | S6 Track | Positions | Signal Stakes
The Friday of FTX week, the whole class will
participate in Signal Stakes. During Signal Stakes each squad (the
same squads that you have had for your academic classes) will navigate
through the woods to different sites. At these sites, you will have to
apply skills which you have learned over the course of SOBC.
The day begins early--at 2 or 3 in the morning. The class will meet at
the motor pool with rucksacks to begin the road march. The road march
is supposed to be 9 miles, but really is 7-8 miles long. The march
will take several hours, and there will be 2 short breaks along the
way. The road march will end at what appears to be an old farm
compound in the hills. The class will have some time to rest, change
socks, and eat the scrumptious MREs provided courtesy of the US Army.
After the breakfast break, everyone will group up into squads and get
assigned a radio to stay in contact with "home base," Each squad will
also receive a map and a start coordinate. One person in the squad
will take on duties as squad leader for that point (this duty changes with
each point).
You will spend the whole day walking from point to point and performing a
specified task at each land nav point. An instructor will be at each
point, along with a student (on profile). The sites will not be easily
seen. There will just be a couple people sitting down in the middle of
the woods. At each point, you will have to call in to home base with
your location and time. The tasks at each point will vary, but will
include such things as evaluating/performing first aid on a casualty, wiring
up a field phone, setting up an antenna, and finding call signs on a piece
of equipment. One of the points will be a rest station. A couple
instructors will be driving around the course to check on things.
There is no reward for visiting all the site, and there is no penalty for
not visiting all of the sites. The day will be long and you will spend
all day walking. You will be carrying your rucksack around the whole
day.
After several hours (at about mid-afternoon), the instructors will end the
exercise and call everyone in (contrary to the rumors, you will not stay out
there until every team has gone through every point).
Once everyone has returned, the class will form up and sing the Signal song.
No one will know the words. Afterwards, the battalion commander will
speak to the class and induct everyone into the signal regiment. A NCO
instructor will come through each squad and pin the signal regimental crest
on each student. They will make a big deal of putting it on your chest
and punching in the pins, but the pins will not go through your BDU
blouse and brown T-Shirt. Make sure you save this pin, you will need
to wear it on your blues for the dining-out, and on your greens for
graduation.
After the induction ceremony, everyone will pile into trucks for the trip
back to post. Everyone is then released for the weekend (your last
weekend at Fort Gordon!).
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