18 August 2005
Mobilization Station Training
Training
We finished the training at the Mobilization Station and I’m currently sitting in a hangar waiting for our aircraft to be fixed. It looks like we’re going to be spending the night on the cement hangar floor in this wonderful heat and humidity. All in the day of the life of . . . .
Any way, back to the heading at hand—training. The training method that the Mobilization Station used was to focus on individual task training and then about half of the way through the summer, we switched to focus on collective task training—tasks that require more than one soldier to conduct.
Land Navigation. The land navigation that we conducted included both mounted (in a vehicle) and dismounted (on foot). The classroom portion of the training was OK (most soldiers were already fairly well trained), the dismounted course was challenging, while the mounted course was fairly easy. Most of the soldiers really enjoyed the challenge of the dismounted course—long distances, varied terrain (swamps to prairies to large hills with thick vegetation) There were a few marked “known” points on the course though that were considerably off (by a couple hundred meters), which frustrated some soldiers at times (myself included). But overall, good events.
PLGRs (a GPS system). Using the PLGRs (pronounced pluggers) was new to most of the soldiers. Even though the system has been around for a while, most soldiers hadn’t used the system before—although, many had used a civilian GPS. After we had a classroom portion, we went outside and went through a relatively easy course using the PLGRs as a navigational aid. While the training was satisfactory, more hands on would have been beneficial.
Individual Weapons Qualification. Going through the individual weapons qualification was an interesting process. We came to the Mobilization Station with M16A2’s. We were suppose to receive our new M4’s before we started the weapons qualification, but we didn’t. So, we had to qualify with the M16’s. Then, when the M4’s came in (three days after we fired the M16’s) we had to fire those. Then when the CCOs came in (close combat optics) several weeks later, we had to zero and fire those. By the end of July, our guys had had a lot of trigger time, which is good. Unfortunately, it was relatively limited on the actual weapon system (the M4s with CCO configuration) that we’re taking to the Middle East. Overall though, I’m confident in my weapon system (with its current configuration) and I’m sure my guys are as well. It is likely that we’ll have more trigger time once we arrive in country.
CTT (Common Task Testing--basic soldier skills). As almost every soldier will tell you, virtually every unit trains on CTT tasks frequently. From the early days of basic training, CTT is a focus. The CTT tasks vary to some extent from year to year, but most soldiers know most tasks fairly well. CTT tasks range from applying a pressure dressing over a wound on various parts of an injured soldier’s body to map reading, to throwing a grenade, to calling in a medevac. While there is one standard for these events (you know, the “Army Standard”), techniques vary depending on who is teaching/testing the task. This variance was clear at the Mobilization Station. Our medics complained that the techniques used for medical tasks could have been better and our soldiers who previously taught other tasks at a different Mobilization Station complained that the techniques used were not taught as well as they should have been, etc.
Culture Awareness. While the formal culture awareness training class was relatively short (an hour or two), we frequently touched on culture awareness-type training events throughout our time at the Mobilization Station. One thing that the Army has done (which I like) is to hire people with Iraqi heritage (or former Iraqi nationals). We mostly ran into them as part of our interaction with COBs (another great Army acronym, standing for Civilians on the Battlefield, and yes it’s pronounced like corn on the “cob”). I’ll elaborate later on COBs. Any way, with regard to culture awareness, we learned a little about language, customs, history, politics, etc. Probably not too much more than what is discerned from the news from the casual observer. I did have the advantage though of taking a three credit university college course earlier this year that delved into the same topics in much greater detail.
SINCGARs (radio systems). We had a brief instruction block on SINCGARs. We’ve been using SINCGARs in the national guard for a few years now. The radio system is great in terms of its capability and secure nature, but it is somewhat difficult to get to know how to use. Once one learns the perishable skills associated with running the system, it’s important to keep them up. The couple-hour block of instruction at the Mobilization Station was the bare minimum. We used several hours of our spare time for training on the SINCGARs system.
Theatre Specific Leader Training. A good idea that was not fully implemented (in my opinion) was leader training. Essentially, the trainers took about two days to teach E6’s (Staff Sergeants) and above on various leader tasks. It would have been nice to have a similar class with sufficient detail to cover all the main collective and key supporting training tasks that we were going to conduct throughout the summer. The instructors just touched on less than one fourth. Also, one set of the instructors for one of our groups was not very good. In fact, our battalion commander took them to the mat on the inconsistency between the message they communicated orally and the message on the instructor’s slides. Bottom line, the course is a great idea that should be expanded on in the implementation with solid instructors.
IED’s (improvised explosive devices). The existence, types, and effects of IED’s were really emphasized throughout the training at the Mobilization Station. In some of the training, the subject matter of IED’s was really oversimplified. For example, in some of the training scenarios, soldiers were suppose to move out, discover a potential IED, move away and call a report in a UXO report concerning the potential IED’s existence. It just so happens in the training scenarios that the IED is a pile of rocks, spray painted red (which was a frequent marker—not sure if the Anti Iraqi Forces know that they are suppose to paint them red). And that’s it. That’s not a very effective countermeasure in my opinion. Although, in fairness, it’s not as if the Mobilization Station or the Army for that matter is not trying to address the matter of IED’s—for example, they flew a retired special forces officer who is now working on the IED Task Force in Baghdad to assist us with IED issues. I believe the difficulty here stems from our inability to develop a coherent and effective response against the AIF’s use of IED’s. While I’m not sure if my soldiers picked up on this (I will be checking on this in the up-coming weeks), my take away from the training was that our response to IED’s needs to evolve and change over time in order to be effective—a single doctrine to be rooted throughout various Army manuals will not work. This really presents some issues in terms of training (substance and frequency) and continually updating and changing SOP’s and our approach to IED’s.
MOUT (fighting in an urban environment). Most of my soldiers really enjoyed the MOUT training. MOUT can be incredibly complex and it requires frequent training in order to preserve the perishable skills. We started training on entering and clearing a room. It’s a basic skill that is more difficult than it sounds. It typically requires at least a four-man team (or stack, which it is usually referred to as) that must work together closely and understand one another’s oral and nonverbal cues to effectively and efficiently clear a room. One great expression that is often mentioned in MOUT is “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” It emphasizes that one shouldn’t rush the task, but rather perfect the movements and the speed will follow from a smooth, well drilled motion.
Reflexive Fire (firing techniques in close combat). The event that preceded our live-fire MOUT exercise was reflexive fire. Soldiers worked on firing techniques for targets that are within 25 meters and weapon positioning when in a MOUT environment. Very enjoyable. The heart really gets pumping when using live rounds, especially when working closely with a four man stack that moves like silk.
Squad/Platoon Light Infantry Training. Imagine, if you will, wearing your full battle rattle, with MILES gear (laser receptors and transmitters that are equivalent to carrying a lead weight), humping (a/k/a moving in dismounted tactical formations) a crew serve weapon (a heavy automatic weapon like a M240B) and/or crew serve rounds in 100 degree heat with high humidity across long areas, culminating with a sprint in order to conduct an assault on a building with many COB’s present. That’s sort of what the squad/platoon infantry training was like. We also covered presence patrols and various dismounted movement techniques. Some soldiers bitched about the training when going through, but I think virtually everyone that went through it liked it. As with the crew serve weapons training, the non-infantry soldiers learned a lot and most felt challenged (at least physically) going through the training.
Base Defense Operations. Base defense operations covered three main areas: (1) ECP—entry control points (think of it as controlling the gate to an installation where you do personnel and vehicular searches), (2) quick reaction forces, and (3) perimeter defense. Overall, the training was good. Some of the instructors were better than others. For any given event, the training had from 10 to 75 COBs that would be a part of the training. For example, for the ECP training, they had a 50-person demonstration at the control point and then they had a small group hurling rocks and trying to enter through the concertina wire. Roughly half of the COBs were from the Middle East (the others were locals hired) and actively spoke Arabic and wore Middle Eastern attire. We also had several smaller direct one-on-one interaction scenarios. For instance, in one scenario there were two women who were taking pictures of our base perimeter and we were to react to the picture taking. The interaction could lead to either an escalated sequence of events culminating in an exchange of fire or a completely cooperative interaction in which we would retain the film and the women walking away.
Road March Stress Fire (firing after conducting a couple hour footmarch at a fast pace with equipment and weapons). The stress fire is designed to show soldiers the difficulty of firing when tired. I had the unfortunate distinction of shooting the worse of my group of 14 (thankfully, I wasn’t the worst in my company). Good event, but it would have been better if we had done it more often in order to get use to firing when tired and breathing heavy.
Ground Assault Convoy. The ground assault convoy involves conducting convoy operations and firing on the move. The training most closely resembles the mission that we will conduct in Iraq. Fortunately, we spent more time on this training than any other training event at the Mobilization Station and it was the training most of our soldiers liked the best. There were a few different scenarios that our soldiers went through but almost all involving firing from moving vehicles, calling in medevac requests and UXO reports, and performing self-recovery of a disabled vehicle. To put it bluntly, our soldiers kicked some butt. More than one instructor commented that we were among the top if not the top unit to go through this lane at the Mobilization Station, which has seen more than 20,000 soldiers pass through there in the last year. The training really gelled some of our teams. Target acquisition, distinction, and engagement were excellent. Team work, communication, and cooperation were outstanding.
We had other training at the Mobilization Station, but It’s the early morning hours now and I need to get some sleep. So that’s all for now.
We finished the training at the Mobilization Station and I’m currently sitting in a hangar waiting for our aircraft to be fixed. It looks like we’re going to be spending the night on the cement hangar floor in this wonderful heat and humidity. All in the day of the life of . . . .
Any way, back to the heading at hand—training. The training method that the Mobilization Station used was to focus on individual task training and then about half of the way through the summer, we switched to focus on collective task training—tasks that require more than one soldier to conduct.
Land Navigation. The land navigation that we conducted included both mounted (in a vehicle) and dismounted (on foot). The classroom portion of the training was OK (most soldiers were already fairly well trained), the dismounted course was challenging, while the mounted course was fairly easy. Most of the soldiers really enjoyed the challenge of the dismounted course—long distances, varied terrain (swamps to prairies to large hills with thick vegetation) There were a few marked “known” points on the course though that were considerably off (by a couple hundred meters), which frustrated some soldiers at times (myself included). But overall, good events.
PLGRs (a GPS system). Using the PLGRs (pronounced pluggers) was new to most of the soldiers. Even though the system has been around for a while, most soldiers hadn’t used the system before—although, many had used a civilian GPS. After we had a classroom portion, we went outside and went through a relatively easy course using the PLGRs as a navigational aid. While the training was satisfactory, more hands on would have been beneficial.
Individual Weapons Qualification. Going through the individual weapons qualification was an interesting process. We came to the Mobilization Station with M16A2’s. We were suppose to receive our new M4’s before we started the weapons qualification, but we didn’t. So, we had to qualify with the M16’s. Then, when the M4’s came in (three days after we fired the M16’s) we had to fire those. Then when the CCOs came in (close combat optics) several weeks later, we had to zero and fire those. By the end of July, our guys had had a lot of trigger time, which is good. Unfortunately, it was relatively limited on the actual weapon system (the M4s with CCO configuration) that we’re taking to the Middle East. Overall though, I’m confident in my weapon system (with its current configuration) and I’m sure my guys are as well. It is likely that we’ll have more trigger time once we arrive in country.
CTT (Common Task Testing--basic soldier skills). As almost every soldier will tell you, virtually every unit trains on CTT tasks frequently. From the early days of basic training, CTT is a focus. The CTT tasks vary to some extent from year to year, but most soldiers know most tasks fairly well. CTT tasks range from applying a pressure dressing over a wound on various parts of an injured soldier’s body to map reading, to throwing a grenade, to calling in a medevac. While there is one standard for these events (you know, the “Army Standard”), techniques vary depending on who is teaching/testing the task. This variance was clear at the Mobilization Station. Our medics complained that the techniques used for medical tasks could have been better and our soldiers who previously taught other tasks at a different Mobilization Station complained that the techniques used were not taught as well as they should have been, etc.
Culture Awareness. While the formal culture awareness training class was relatively short (an hour or two), we frequently touched on culture awareness-type training events throughout our time at the Mobilization Station. One thing that the Army has done (which I like) is to hire people with Iraqi heritage (or former Iraqi nationals). We mostly ran into them as part of our interaction with COBs (another great Army acronym, standing for Civilians on the Battlefield, and yes it’s pronounced like corn on the “cob”). I’ll elaborate later on COBs. Any way, with regard to culture awareness, we learned a little about language, customs, history, politics, etc. Probably not too much more than what is discerned from the news from the casual observer. I did have the advantage though of taking a three credit university college course earlier this year that delved into the same topics in much greater detail.
SINCGARs (radio systems). We had a brief instruction block on SINCGARs. We’ve been using SINCGARs in the national guard for a few years now. The radio system is great in terms of its capability and secure nature, but it is somewhat difficult to get to know how to use. Once one learns the perishable skills associated with running the system, it’s important to keep them up. The couple-hour block of instruction at the Mobilization Station was the bare minimum. We used several hours of our spare time for training on the SINCGARs system.
Theatre Specific Leader Training. A good idea that was not fully implemented (in my opinion) was leader training. Essentially, the trainers took about two days to teach E6’s (Staff Sergeants) and above on various leader tasks. It would have been nice to have a similar class with sufficient detail to cover all the main collective and key supporting training tasks that we were going to conduct throughout the summer. The instructors just touched on less than one fourth. Also, one set of the instructors for one of our groups was not very good. In fact, our battalion commander took them to the mat on the inconsistency between the message they communicated orally and the message on the instructor’s slides. Bottom line, the course is a great idea that should be expanded on in the implementation with solid instructors.
IED’s (improvised explosive devices). The existence, types, and effects of IED’s were really emphasized throughout the training at the Mobilization Station. In some of the training, the subject matter of IED’s was really oversimplified. For example, in some of the training scenarios, soldiers were suppose to move out, discover a potential IED, move away and call a report in a UXO report concerning the potential IED’s existence. It just so happens in the training scenarios that the IED is a pile of rocks, spray painted red (which was a frequent marker—not sure if the Anti Iraqi Forces know that they are suppose to paint them red). And that’s it. That’s not a very effective countermeasure in my opinion. Although, in fairness, it’s not as if the Mobilization Station or the Army for that matter is not trying to address the matter of IED’s—for example, they flew a retired special forces officer who is now working on the IED Task Force in Baghdad to assist us with IED issues. I believe the difficulty here stems from our inability to develop a coherent and effective response against the AIF’s use of IED’s. While I’m not sure if my soldiers picked up on this (I will be checking on this in the up-coming weeks), my take away from the training was that our response to IED’s needs to evolve and change over time in order to be effective—a single doctrine to be rooted throughout various Army manuals will not work. This really presents some issues in terms of training (substance and frequency) and continually updating and changing SOP’s and our approach to IED’s.
MOUT (fighting in an urban environment). Most of my soldiers really enjoyed the MOUT training. MOUT can be incredibly complex and it requires frequent training in order to preserve the perishable skills. We started training on entering and clearing a room. It’s a basic skill that is more difficult than it sounds. It typically requires at least a four-man team (or stack, which it is usually referred to as) that must work together closely and understand one another’s oral and nonverbal cues to effectively and efficiently clear a room. One great expression that is often mentioned in MOUT is “Slow is smooth. Smooth is fast.” It emphasizes that one shouldn’t rush the task, but rather perfect the movements and the speed will follow from a smooth, well drilled motion.
Reflexive Fire (firing techniques in close combat). The event that preceded our live-fire MOUT exercise was reflexive fire. Soldiers worked on firing techniques for targets that are within 25 meters and weapon positioning when in a MOUT environment. Very enjoyable. The heart really gets pumping when using live rounds, especially when working closely with a four man stack that moves like silk.
Squad/Platoon Light Infantry Training. Imagine, if you will, wearing your full battle rattle, with MILES gear (laser receptors and transmitters that are equivalent to carrying a lead weight), humping (a/k/a moving in dismounted tactical formations) a crew serve weapon (a heavy automatic weapon like a M240B) and/or crew serve rounds in 100 degree heat with high humidity across long areas, culminating with a sprint in order to conduct an assault on a building with many COB’s present. That’s sort of what the squad/platoon infantry training was like. We also covered presence patrols and various dismounted movement techniques. Some soldiers bitched about the training when going through, but I think virtually everyone that went through it liked it. As with the crew serve weapons training, the non-infantry soldiers learned a lot and most felt challenged (at least physically) going through the training.
Base Defense Operations. Base defense operations covered three main areas: (1) ECP—entry control points (think of it as controlling the gate to an installation where you do personnel and vehicular searches), (2) quick reaction forces, and (3) perimeter defense. Overall, the training was good. Some of the instructors were better than others. For any given event, the training had from 10 to 75 COBs that would be a part of the training. For example, for the ECP training, they had a 50-person demonstration at the control point and then they had a small group hurling rocks and trying to enter through the concertina wire. Roughly half of the COBs were from the Middle East (the others were locals hired) and actively spoke Arabic and wore Middle Eastern attire. We also had several smaller direct one-on-one interaction scenarios. For instance, in one scenario there were two women who were taking pictures of our base perimeter and we were to react to the picture taking. The interaction could lead to either an escalated sequence of events culminating in an exchange of fire or a completely cooperative interaction in which we would retain the film and the women walking away.
Road March Stress Fire (firing after conducting a couple hour footmarch at a fast pace with equipment and weapons). The stress fire is designed to show soldiers the difficulty of firing when tired. I had the unfortunate distinction of shooting the worse of my group of 14 (thankfully, I wasn’t the worst in my company). Good event, but it would have been better if we had done it more often in order to get use to firing when tired and breathing heavy.
Ground Assault Convoy. The ground assault convoy involves conducting convoy operations and firing on the move. The training most closely resembles the mission that we will conduct in Iraq. Fortunately, we spent more time on this training than any other training event at the Mobilization Station and it was the training most of our soldiers liked the best. There were a few different scenarios that our soldiers went through but almost all involving firing from moving vehicles, calling in medevac requests and UXO reports, and performing self-recovery of a disabled vehicle. To put it bluntly, our soldiers kicked some butt. More than one instructor commented that we were among the top if not the top unit to go through this lane at the Mobilization Station, which has seen more than 20,000 soldiers pass through there in the last year. The training really gelled some of our teams. Target acquisition, distinction, and engagement were excellent. Team work, communication, and cooperation were outstanding.
We had other training at the Mobilization Station, but It’s the early morning hours now and I need to get some sleep. So that’s all for now.
# posted by themobilized : 04:54
