Koutnik serves alongside fellow classmate Sgt. “The benefit to being here is I’m staying at the same place, eating at the same place, going to school at the same place.” “For me it’s been hands down awesome,” he said. He said the sheer volume of information made the course difficult, but the 426th’s instructors were very skilled in presenting it and having all aspects of the course in the same building at the Wisconsin Military Academy at Fort McCoy allowed him to focus on what he needed to accomplish. “This has been the most informative course I’ve ever taken,” he said. Jacob Koutnik, also originally a supply specialist with the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s Milwaukee-based 1st Battalion, 121st Field Artillery, said the course was the most difficult military course he’s experienced. Others in the course, which had National Guard and Army Reserve students from the Wisconsin Army National Guard, Michigan, Texas, Indiana, Arkansas, Florida, Texas and Georgia shared a similar sentiment. It’s really challenging and really excellent instruction.” “I had prior knowledge of a lot of the stuff that we’re doing based on the live-fires I had gone on, but I’ve gone to a lot of schools and to a variety of schools, and this is the most difficult course I’ve been to as far as the content and the exams. “It’s excellent,” Mayberry said of the course. Mayberry and others heaped praise on the RTI’s course instruction and subject-matter expertise. She will have a wealth of knowledge from which to draw, if the initial feedback from students about the first 13J course are any indication. “I think that if they’re going to enlist high school students into combat arms units that there should be some females somewhere in their chain of command and some NCO mentorship in there.” “That’s one of the reasons why it is so important to me,” she said. She hopes that someday she will be one of the non-commissioned officers leading and mentoring other young female field artillery Soldiers. She eventually moved over to the 1158th, but with the support of her command to receive the 13J training, she aims to work her way into a field artillery unit soon. “I tried to take advantage of being surrounded by all of these instructors and so much knowledge and information and just soak up as much as I could,” she said. After assisting some of the 13Ds with some fire mission processing, Mayberry was hooked and took advantage of every opportunity to do live-fire missions with the unit. In 2008, the artillery school at the 426th needed some additional help for a live-fire mission and asked her if she’d like to participate. When she first enlisted in 2005, she was assigned to the 426th as a supply specialist. Getting qualified in a field artillery MOS has long been one of her goals. Mayberry hopes to move to a field artillery unit sometime in the next few years and completing the 13J school will make that transition easier someday. Defense Secretary Ashton Carter subsequently declared all military jobs and units open to women without exception in December 2015. The Army’s field artillery branch and other combat arms branches had long been closed to women until recent Department of Defense changes lifted restrictions on women serving in roles such as combat engineer and in the artillery. Nicole Mayberry, currently a supply specialist in the Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 1158th Transportation Company in Black River Falls, Wisconsin, will become the first female Soldier to complete the 13J course. Ultimately 11 students from around the country, including three from the Wisconsin Army National Guard, will graduate as the first nationwide to have completed the course. The 13J course taught students how to process missions for both cannons and rockets, which requires students to receive information from forward observers and process that information into data that the cannons or rockets can use to fire. 3-23, which merged the fire direction and control occupations of both cannons (13D) and rocket systems (13P) into one integrated MOS. The RTI hosted the Army’s first-ever course for the new 13J military occupation specialty Jan. The Wisconsin Army National Guard’s 426th Regional Training Institute at Fort McCoy continues to lead the way in the Army’s field artillery community.
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