SPEARFISH - They've built roads and flattened camp areas and parking lots in the Hills and in Iraq, but Saturday, the 842nd Engineer Co. of the South Dakota National Guard worked to emphasize the fun of training at an open house a few miles north of Spearfish.

The unit has detachments in Belle Fourche, Spearfish, Sturgis and now Lemmon, and readiness NCO Sgt. 1st Class Blaine Anderson of Belle Fourche said Saturday's open house and training was a typical drill with groups running heavy equipment at Spearfish and Lemmon, qualifying on small arms in Rapid City and working on roads at the Belle Fourche Reservoir.

Capt. Steve Polzin of Rapid City and 1st Sgt. Mike Hudson of Pierre were traveling between the headquarters armory in Spearfish and the training and open house site north of town where senior equipment operators were coaching less experienced operators on bulldozers, dump trucks and semis.

Meanwhile, Sgt. 1st Class Nathan Juelfs of Belle Fourche handled the organization for about 60 teens from the Northern Hills in the fourth annual 842nd Paintball Tournament called "Operation Red Welt."

Area high school students were entered as teams for a tournament day and chow while also having an opportunity to see their local Army National Guard unit in training.

Anderson said mud made the heavy equipment training a bit more interesting as vehicles made their way among red pylons, bulldozers built a berm and dump trucks backed into loading docks using only outside rearview mirrors.

"You have to do it right the first time," Anderson said of the competition that has been an annual unit exercise since 1997, except for the time the unit spent in Iraq in 2003 and 2004.

He was driving one of the unit's new Humvees with current military specifications for overseas service.

"That door is 400 pounds," he said.

The inside automatic fire extinguisher system makes it de facto "non-smoking," Anderson said.

"It's a lot different from the cloth-top Hummers we had when we first went to Iraq," he said.

But that was before IEDs and road mines made vehicle armor and personal body armor part of the unit's regular equipment.

To keep the vehicle running in spite of the extra protective weight, Anderson said, "It's got a bigger engine, and it's turbocharged."

It's also air-conditioned for desert 130-degree temperatures and has a roof that can be opened up to use a machine gun or grenade launcher.

Anderson said that most of the time, the unit's actual work is "for other people in the area, like the roads we built at the Belle Fourche Reservoir out at Orman.

"This is the weekend when we play with our toys," he said.