About a hundred state lawmakers and their staff spend a day in the life of a soldier.
They visited Fort Hood to experience some of the things our troops go through on a daily basis.
Now some are targeting changes in the legislature that could affect installations all over the state.
Fort Hood's virtual training center is one of many soldier experiences they got a taste of today.
Rep. Jimmie Don Aycock (R-District 54) from Killeen came to the event with a mission in mind.
"I'm going to show these fellow members and their staffers the needs that the state can support our troops with, schools, water, transportation," said Aycock, "The things that important to the state are also important to the troops."
And from Temple, Rep. Ralph Sheffield (R-District 55) was there backing him up on that.
"To show them the kind of training that goes on here on Fort Hood, how large Fort Hood is, and the impact that it has on our state economy," Sheffield said.
And the soldiers were glad to see them spend a day in their boots.
SGT Mathias Kitz said, "It's great to see that somebody actually cares about what we're doing, so they can see what we're up to. They support us, so we've got to support them."
SPC Tyler Gilmour said, "I wish they did this more often. That way, they get the general public knowledge on what we do, so that way we have a lot more people supporting us."
And that's the aim, straight from the training zone to the capitol dome.
"We hope that they come away knowing how much these soldiers add not only to our economy, but to our way of life and we hope they come away from it willing to return that support for what they do to us," Aycock said.
Reporter: Sophia Stamas sstamas@kcentv.com
Photographer: Chris Buford cbuford@kcentv.com
