These are neither pencils nor crayons. These are hundreds of 7.62 mm rounds waiting to be picked up by Citizen-Soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 296th Infantry Regiment of the Puerto Rico National Guard at an M240 machine gun qualification exercise during their annual training. The 296th will be conducting their Annual Training 2015 in coordination with the 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team from the Louisiana National Guard at Fort Polk, La., May 30 – June 13. According to Lt. Col. Hector Santiago, the 296th commander, one of the reasons for his unit to train in Fort Polk is to be able to use weaponry they cannot use in Puerto Rico due to temporary terrain constraints. Some of the weapons scheduled to be used are the .50-caliber Browning machine gun, M120 Mortar System and the BGM-71 Tube-launched Optically-tracked Wire-guided Missile (TOW) among others.
<dl><dd>Unit: 113th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment</dd>
<dd>DVIDS Tags: Louisiana; Puerto Rico; uniform; Annual Training; Fort Polk; unit; National Guard; 256th Infantry Brigade Combat Team; 7.62 mm; Citizen-Soldiers; 296th Infantry Battalion</dd></dl>
Staff Sgt. Angel D. Martinez
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