89th MP Bde Staff put their communication skills to test

Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Ryan Hohman | The 89th MP Bde. staff monitor their workstations as they continuously track and relay information from their battalions and role-players pretending to be their higher command during a command post exercises at Fort Hood’s MCTC Oct. 28. (Photo by Staff Sgt. Ryan Hohman, 89th MP Bde. Public Affairs)  

FORT HOOD, TX, UNITED STATES

10.31.2014

Story by Staff Sgt. Ryan Hohman 

89th Military Police Brigade

FORT HOOD, Texas - The 89th Military Police Brigade staff put their skills to the test during the second in a series of command post exercises at Fort Hood’s Mission Command Training Center Oct. 27-31.

The CPX offered the staff the opportunity to improve and sustain their proficiency by integrating mission command system capabilities and interoperability, while learning how to better manage information flow and refine battle drills.

This exercise was a continuation of an ongoing exercise the 89th MP Bde. staff, along with the Mission Command Training Team, have been developing and executing over the course of nine months.

The main goal of these exercises is to prepare the brigade staff to deploy, said Maj. Melissa Stewart, who serves as the training and exercise officer for the 89th MP Bde.

“It teaches us how to react to situations, and how to plan for combat operations,” Stewart said.

The MCTT provided the 89th MP Bde. with real-world scenarios that allows them to come together as a staff and function without the presence of Soldiers. With each CPX, the scenarios became more complex and tested the processes the brigade has developed to relay and react to information.

“This CPX was supposed to take what happened in the first CPX and get us into the walk phase,” Stewart said.

To build in additional

stressors to this exercise, the brigade added more complex scenarios that required heavy involvement across the different staff sections, Stewart said.

The 89th MP Bde. flew in representatives from their three outlying battalions at Fort Carson, Colorado, Fort Bliss and Fort Riley, Kansas, to join the 720th Military Police Battalion at Fort Hood to assist in building communication processes from the battalion to the brigade and back to the battalion.

The Soldiers from the battalions acted as an additional stressor during the exercise, Stewart said.

The Soldiers from the different battalions were tasked with relaying information and scenarios to the brigade staff just as though they were deployed.

2nd Lt. Michele Deegan, Platoon leader with the 984th Military Police Company, 759th Military Police Battalion, said it was great traveling from her home station of Fort Carson, to the Great Place to work with her higher headquarters, the 89th MP Bde.

“I learned about how important it is to ensure the flow of communication is clear and how I can be proactive about making sure everyone knows to send me the information I need so I can push it up and they properly track it,” Deegan said.

Throughout the training, both the brigade staff and battalion representatives were given scenarios that would force them to react and distribute information to each other to achieve mission success.

It was nice to learn about how the brigade tracks information and learn how to make sure the information isn’t diluted or misunderstood like “the telephone game,” Deegan added.

This training provided insight, not only to the brigade staff, but for the battalion representatives, as well.

“(The exercise) allowed me to see how everyone over here works and allowed me to get to know how the system works,” Deegan said.

As the training exercise came to a close, the brigade hoped to take lessons learned and apply them to their next CPX scheduled the beginning of next year.

“The exercise went really well,” Stewart said. “It’s important that we take what we leaned and use it during the next exercise so we can continue to improve.”

• Date Taken: 10.31.2014
• Date Posted: 11.13.2014 11:29
• Story ID: 147723
• Location: FORT HOOD, TX, US