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FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. - Texas Military Forces' 36th
Infantry Division joined military members from all across
the country to hone their warfighting and peacekeeping
skills in a wide-scoped, big picture training exercise.
Soldiers and Airmen delved into a battlefield scenario and
fought through a designed conflict to come away with very
real results. The scenarios tested Commanders and their
staff's skills at every level from first contact through
offensive and defensive measures to sustainment, all without
firing a single shot. This highly sophisticated training
exercise is known as Warfighter.
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Soldiers and Airmen of the Texas Military Forces' 36th Infantry
Division and 209th Weather Flight with the 42nd Infantry Division
participate in a Warfighter training exercise, May 2014, in Fort
Leavenworth, Kan. This exercise had the units being evaluated acting
at their designated level, while the additional units training
participate by filling in as higher and complimentary levels of
command and support to test their battlefield skills and processes.
(TXARNG Photo by Sgt. 1st Class Suzanne Ringle. May 23, 2014)
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In this exercise,
the units being evaluated act at their designated level,
while the additional units training participate by filling
in as higher and complimentary levels of command and
support. Each training level leads to the next, building
cohesion and a mastery of concepts. This year, the Lone Star
State's Soldiers find themselves in the role of Corps
Headquarters during the official evaluation for the 42nd
Infantry Division from Troy, New York and 12 other states.
Capt. Dustin Crapse, 648th Maneuver Enhancement
Brigade, Georgia National Guard, said some of the best
advice he would recommend when preparing for the Warfighter
exercise would be, “If you are about to go into the ‘box,'
it is best to make sure you dust off your SOPs [standard
operating procedures], you dust off your 10-level [basic]
skills manuals and your [Field Manuals]; bring them to the
Warfighter and put your ‘game-face' on, because it's long
hard days and it is a great learning experience,” he said.
Crapse explained further, a Warfighter builds on all
of a Soldier's skills gained to date.
“The greatest
experience you can have as far as training in the Army,
because it forces you to exercise all of your skills inside
your MOS [Military Occupation Specialty]. We all go through
AIT [Army Initial Training] or OBC [Officers Basic Course]
they don't have the time and the resources to put together
the training environment in which you would function as a
unit. So, a Warfighter provides that resource that you can
go to, to function as a unit, rehearse your SOP's and
practice the doctrine that you were taught back in your
MOS-producing school.”
Over 50 acres of Fort
Leavenworth are dedicated to supporting the specialized
training environment where fiction and reality go
head-to-head. The Mission Training Complex- Leavenworth
(MTC-LVN) provides a versatile training facility that
includes projected and response training products as well as
a staff of civilian and military experts to design and
execute the training scenarios. While these scenarios are
computer driven they offer a level of interaction that test
Commanders' and senior leaders' critical decision making
skills and offer a broader understanding to staff members.
Working in a Combined Operations Integration Cell,
Soldiers and Airmen from each facet of the operation
navigate a three-screened computer that offers a detailed
view of the battlefield so they can manage their assets and
keep the Command aware of the subtlest of threats or
changes.
Sgt. Jeremy Terry, 36ID, Plans and
Operations, has participated in three other Warfighter
Exercises and has taken away some valuable lessons, ”Keeping
your head on a swivel, what I mean by that is, you may think
you know what you are doing but there are other people
around you that are doing the same job day in and day out
with you; you need to be able to learn new things and not
think that you are the [only] subject matter expert of your
area,” he said. “You can always learn new things and not be
afraid to operate outside of your role. If you see someone
struggling, go over and help them out and that will be
returned to you.”
For every Army unit there is a
three phase training cycle that takes the units from a reset
mode (after a deployment) where units overhaul their gear
and personnel, to battle drills and computerized training
scenarios (like this one), ending in a final evaluation
exercise before deployment; Then it cycles back again. This
training cycle is called ARFORGEN. Short for Army Force
Generation, ARFORGEN is the Army's core process of building
trained and ready forces.
National Guard units have
a four-year cycle while active components are on a two-year
cycle. Commander of the 36 ID Headquarters Battalion, Lt.
Col. Gary Beaty, relayed the importance of training like
this is it allows those Soldiers who in the last 12 years
have not known an environment where we did not fall into
operations and pick up from where the last unit stopped, “It
still comes back to the basics. It does not matter how
technologically advanced we become, those systems are still
vulnerable especially as we move further into the 21st
century - You have to be ready to lose those systems and
capabilities and still be able to fight in a [more] degraded
type mode than what we are used to.”
As part of
making the battle simulation world come to life for the
service members and to be true to an Army training motto of
"train as we fight," the two-week training exercise is
conducted at an operational tempo as if in theater. That
means 24-hour operations, tense sessions of accountability,
dealing with the loss of troops and assets, as well as
print, online and video news stories that are either
accurate or designed to fuel the fires of enemy combatants.
No detail has been overlooked; even weather conditions
provide a very real impact on plans and operations.
Maj. Sean Gibbons, 209th Weather Flight, Texas Air National
Guard, Camp Mabry said, “Weather affects everything, out
there; weather stops missions from even getting off the
ground. Air Force Weather provides 24-hour global
forecasting support. During this mission we worked out a lot
of the bugs on how our product needs to look for the general
to make the decisions he needs to make at the Corps level.
Meeting the staff will be a huge benefit when it comes time
for us to be evaluated next year or deploy ... We are one
family ... one fight.”
Warfighter exercises provide as
close to real world as you can get -- Minus the blood and
bullets.
By TXARNG Sgt. 1st Class Suzanne Ringle
Provided
through DVIDS
Copyright 2014
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