Combat marksmanship course graduates, Afghan army utilizes skills in field

CAMP LEATHERNECK, AFGHANISTAN

06.30.2011

Story by Lance Cpl. Katherine Solano 

Regional Command Southwest

CAMP LEATHERNECK, Afghanistan – Twelve Afghan National Army soldiers graduated from the first Combat Marksmanship Training Course to be taught at the Joint Sustainment Academy Southwest, here, June 30.

The course taught tactics and procedures much the same as Marine recruits learn in their basic training.

“They basically do everything a Marine would do in a course in a shorter period of time, and they still have to meet some pretty hard qualification standards,” said Staff Sgt. Christopher Mingle, the course’s officer in charge. “It’s pretty rough for them, but the guys that pass the course do an excellent job.”

The students graduating from the CMT course were just one example of how JSAS and coalition forces are working together to promote independence and self-sustainment in Afghanistan. The Afghan students are being given larger and more frequent roles as instructors and leaders.

Many of the courses held at JSAS in the last year have trained recruits from the ANA, Afghan Border Police and Afghan Uniformed Police. The CMT course was different because it consisted entirely of soldiers who were noncommissioned officers. This difference allowed the Marine instructors to place the students themselves in leadership and instructing roles as the course progressed. It is the goal of JSAS to be able to send the students back to their units to teach other soldiers and police, as well as recruits, based on their training at the academy.

“The initial week or two, they were going through strictly as students,” said Mingle. “We eventually actually rotated them through positions out there on the range, that way each of them could physically be the range safety officer, be the ammo NCO, and get experience. We had to make sure they were qualified on the actual weapon systems before we could get them out there.”

The course covered the M16 rifle, M249 squad automatic weapon and M240 medium machine gun system. The students learned the fundamentals of the weapons, how to break them down and how to do weapons maintenance. The students were required to conduct and qualify on multiple courses of fire in order to graduate from the course. The students who qualified at an early stage had an opportunity to instruct other students further on in the course.

“We did an M16 requalification course for five of the soldiers who hadn’t qualified yet, said Mingle, a Wichita, Kan., native. “The other students did all the instruction, did all the line NCO calls, they shadowed myself as the range OIC, they shadowed the range safety officer for the day and we let them do 100 percent of the instruction to get those guys qualified.

“They were successful. They were able to qualify four out of the five students, so we are confident they can take the things we’ve taught them and move on and teach the recruits.”

This confidence instilled in the Afghan students will allow Marines to continue to train them as instructors, giving them more responsibility and leadership roles as the courses progress.

“The transition for JSAS to be able to put the ANA soldiers, the AUP, the ABP, into those instructor roles and send them back out has been a major focus for us over the last four months and it’s really picking up to the point where we want them to be able to go out and teach,” Mingle said. “What we ask them to do is a lot harder than what they’re used to being asked to do, but they do very well at it. Getting them out there to teach is the goal, and I think in the future, as we continue to do this, we will see more and more improvement. Feedback from the battlespace is they are doing great,” Mingle said.

• Date Taken: 06.30.2011
• Date Posted: 07.02.2011 11:43
• Story ID: 73157
• Location: CAMP LEATHERNECK, AF