Warrior training increases at Aberdeen Proving Ground - Ordance Soldiers train on the '40/9'

ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, MD (TRADOC News Service, Dec. 22, 2004) - The two humvees move slowly along the warehouses, the Soldiers on board alertly watching the buildings and the nearby wooded area.

Suddenly there is the sound of a rocket being fired and a flash explosion as the rocket skids under the body of the lead humvee. It's an ambush from the field just beyond the tree line, and the troops react.

As the first vehicle comes to a halt and the Soldiers move into a defensive posture, covering the site of the ambush, gunfire erupts as several "enemy" personnel engage the vehicles.

The second vehicle moves toward the enemy and halts. The Soldiers take shelter behind the vehicle and return fire.

Three pop-up targets are downed. The enemy is killed or driven off. There are no apparent casualties.

But the threat remains. The Soldiers have stopped near a building that could house more enemy personnel. They move into position and then into the structure to search. They capture one subject and move him off for detention.

Such is a brief look into the training being conducted by the Ordnance Mechanical Maintenance School's Noncommissioned Officer Academy as the training focus shifts to warrior skills.

"Our goal," said Regimental Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony T. Aubain, "is to have every BNCOC (Basic Noncommissioned Officer Academy Course) graduate certified Level I combative prior to graduation of Phase III."

Several phases of this new training were demonstrated recently to Gen. Kevin P. Byrnes, commander of U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command, and TRADOC Command Sgt. Maj. Anthony J. Williams. Brig. Gen. Vincent E. Boles, the Army's Chief of Ordnance and commanding general of the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and Schools, hosted the two TRADOC leaders.

During an address to the Association of the United States Army 2004 annual meeting, Byrnes set the stage for the changing focus of Army training during the initial-entry training phase of a Soldier's life.

"Our assumption is that when our Soldiers leave the training base, they'll go straight to combat," Byrnes said. "We truly believe that war is now the norm; war is the steady-state environment, and peace is the exception. We are executing sustained combat operations, and we expect to continue to execute sustained combat operations."

Boles, who just returned from combat in Iraq, has echoed Byrnes in previous public comments. During his change-of-command ceremony, he told those gathered that ordnance Soldiers throughout the world were preparing to go to war, were returning from war or were doing those things necessary to get ready to return to war.

This varied audience was reflected in the NCO students that the two generals met as they toured the academy training area. Soldiers participating in the training included veterans from Operation Iraqi Freedom and Soldiers preparing to face the enemy for the first time. One veteran NCO student told the visitors that the training was "very relevant".

Byrnes told his AUSA audience, "In the IET base, we've identified the need given the war; we've identified the need for 40 individual tasks and 9 collective tasks every Soldier must be able to perform before they graduate from AIT (advanced individual training)".

He told the students at the NCOA that what and how we train has to change.

"When we were fighting the Soviets, we knew how to fight," Byrnes said, "because it centered on the military, not politics in Moscow."

"These guys," he continued, "we need to know their culture, the way they think." He went on to say that he wants to push this thinking into officer training and down to NCO and enlisted training.

At the U.S. Army Ordnance Center and Schools, Aubain headed a task force to ensure that warrior training was embedded in professional-development training for the Ordnance Corps' NCOs. "As we move forward, we understand we are an Army at war, and change must be relevant and has to come rapidly," he noted.

With that in mind, the NCOA has not only revamped its BNCOC training to include 13 1/2 more hours, the field-training exercise was redesigned and made more relevant to training warriors.

"We need to get rid of the rear-area mentality," said Aubain.

The FTX has become a 24-hour-a-day operation lasting five days.

"In addition to the warrior tasks and battle drills," explained Aubain, "we have incorporated Ranger combative training."

The training is conducted in both the Aberdeen and Edgewood areas of APG. Specialized equipment, such as the Laser Marksmanship Training System (LMTS) and the Laser Convoy Counter Ambush Training System (L-CCATS) are incorporated to offer more realistic training.

According to Command Sgt. Maj. Edith Crofts, commandant of the Ordnance Mechanical Maintenance School's NCO Academy, more focus has also been given to training such as battle-damage assessment and repair - also known as BDAR - and BDAR kits, crew-served weapons and convoy operations.

"As each class concludes their training, they conduct an AAR (after-action review) with their small-group leaders," explained Crofts. "Many of these students have recently returned from deployment. They tell us what they saw in their units, and we try to incorporate their feedback into the lessons."

"Knowledge of crew-served weapons, quick-aim fire and clearing a building/room are a few of the changes made from the time we started this training," she continued. "I talked to each ANCOC class since we implemented the new [program of instruction], and every class told me they wish they had this training before they deployed. They all agree that it is valuable, worthwhile training. And all are eager to return to their units to train their Soldiers."

Another training addition for some of the Soldiers is discussion time with Sgt. James Riley, who is a former prisoner of war and a survivor of the attack on 507th Maintenance Company in the early days of Operation Iraqi Freedom. He is now an instructor at the Ordnance Mechanical Maintenance School.

"The students are very interested in what he has to say and what he experienced," noted Crofts.

Byrnes has noted that this new training focus has been implemented to put Warrior Ethos into the schoolhouse.

Warrior Ethos means, basically, that every Soldier is a Soldier first; a Soldier will never quit; mission will always come first; Soldiers refuse to accept defeat; and Soldiers will never leave a fallen comrade behind.

"It's about being a Soldier," Byrnes has stressed to many audiences. "We're not cooks, we're not mechanics, we're not electricians; we are Soldiers, and we have skills that apply to these different areas."

Aubain quotes Proverbs 27:17 from the Bible to explain the training: "As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another."

-- Posted on Wednesday, December 22 2004