3rd IBCT, 1st Armored Division experience sights, smells of Afghanistan during COIN operations

Photo By Lt. Col. Deanna Bague | Soldiers from 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, prepare to patrol during a counterinsurgency training exercise a t Playas Training and Research Center in New Mexico.  

PLAYAS, NM, UNITED STATES

09.23.2010

Story by Lt. Col. Deanna Bague 

Fort Bliss Public Affairs Office

PLAYAS, N.M. – Soldiers from 3rd Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, are engaging throughout the month of September in counterinsurgency situational training exercises at Playas Training and Research Center here to familiarize troops with the Afghan theater of operations.

“What we’ve done is establish two villages just like in Afghanistan,” said Col. Christopher Cavoli, commander of 3rd IBCT, 1st Armored Div.

The entire infrastructure – the physical plant of the village, said Cavoli, replicates Afghanistan. Role players who are from Afghanistan who speak Pashto and or Dari partake in the scenarios, he added.

“[We] filled [the villages] with the sights, sounds [and] smells of Afghanistan,” said Cavoli.

A scripted training scenario drives a series of actions. A rifle company is placed in each village for a few days to manage the situation in that town. The battalions are responsible for receiving, analyzing and processing reports for the companies, said Cavoli.

Cavoli said every troop–size maneuver element in the brigade will rotate through the COIN situational training exercise.

Capt. Marvin Switzer, commander of C Company, 2nd Battalion, 5th Infantry Regiment, whose role was to interact with a mock village leader, said he experienced how dealings can suddenly take a turn for the worse due to an unforeseen occurrence.

“Things were going great, I thought, and this morning we had an unfortunate accident in the scenario,” said Switzer. “The village is upset with you – you feel horrible. You just built this great rapport over 24 hours and within two minutes it’s all gone.

“Never in my life did I think how I could have handled that and right there you’re just thrown on the spot …,” said Switzer. “I just had to work my way through it; and it actually worked out well in the end.”

Brian Howe, a project manager for Strategic Operations, said the scenarios are designed to test Soldiers’ flexibility and ability to “change on the fly;” therefore, how Soldiers react can drive a scenario.

“You can have a captain come in and do all the right things and you can have one of his subordinates come in and greatly offend somebody and take him back a week in the work that he’s done – but that’s real,” said Howe.

Howe said the role players understand the impact of each person’s actions because it is their culture.

“While they’re playing offended, they also understand that in real life they would be offended,” said Howe. “They don’t usually take actual offense to it because they understand it’s a training scenario, but I don’t have to tell them they should be offended. Whereas if you were to use American role players trying to play the Afghan culture, you have to explain to them when they should be upset and when they shouldn’t.

“By using Afghans you don’t have to do that – this is their culture and they’re happy to impart that on to the Soldiers so that they have a better chance of success and more civilian lives will be saved,” said Howe.

• Date Taken: 09.23.2010
• Date Posted: 09.30.2010 04:51
• Story ID: 57225
• Location: PLAYAS, NM, US