McGREGOR RANGE COMPLEX, N.M. - Death by PowerPoint. A phrase many soldiers don’t like to hear when it comes to training, but for the current rotation more than 220 U.S. Army Reserve soldiers and members of the Canadian Forces Military Police taking part in Exercise Guardian Justice, a necessary part of their education and preparation.
Exercise Guardian Justice, based at McGregor Range Complex in New Mexico, focuses on training for handling of detainees and Prisoners of War, which is historically a military police task. The four-month exercise, which began in May, rotates different units through the exercise in 12-day increments, and kicks off each rotation with two days of classes filled with presentations covering everything from the history of detainee operations to the Geneva Convention, law of war, rules of engagement and much more.
Once they complete the classroom training, the soldiers will do nine days of hands-on training, and a recreation day to wrap it all up.
“The first two days are a bunch of PowerPoint presentation classes covering the technical knowledge that they have to know before they can actually do anything that’s hands on,” said Staff Sgt. Grant Caldwell, the Observer Controller noncommissioned officer in charge with the 414th Military Police Company out of Joplin, Mo.
“We teach them about the Geneva Convention, behavioral drift and how to interact with detainees from an overall point of view,” said Caldwell, a native of Knob Noster, Mo.
The exercise is structured so soldiers going through the training receive a refresher of basic concepts of conducting detainee operations prior to hands-on classes. Many of classes were created by the OCTs, and included personal experiences they had from previous deployments and assignments.
“We developed these classes alongside Army doctrine, civilian experience as well as Army experience from the ground up. This is to make sure that all the bases are covered and that we are getting the information about humane care and care, custody and control to the soldiers,” said Caldwell.
Putting this training together and gathering the resources for the training was a mission in itself, to insure the best training would be provided to the soldiers going through the exercise.
“We actually arrived three to four weeks prior to the first rotation. In that time we not only developed our training schedule, we also got together all of our training equipment,” said Caldwell. “That was a huge hurdle, trying to round up everything from cuffs to shackles, to jump suits for the final training exercise.”
Caldwell and his team were also tasked with gathering observer controllers with experience in detainee operations to train the incoming soldiers.
“Gathering good OCT’s with experience and teaching them to teach that experience also took a couple of weeks. We had all the OCT’s actually give their classes to each other so that we could identify weakness in their training,” said Caldwell.
“This was done so that when the warfighters got here, they would have professional instructors that look and teach like professional instructors,” he added.
Although the first two days of classes were filled with presentations and limited demonstrations, there was a lot of information participants gathered from them.
“I know about half of this stuff, but they are going into depth on certain areas where I still have a lot to learn when it comes to certain specifics of detainee operations,” said Pfc. Juan Luna, a military police soldier with the 83rd Military Police Company out of El Paso, Texas.
“I’m eager to learn,” said the Del Rio, Texas native, “so that I can actually put it to use out there in the real world.”
Once the soldiers complete the mandatory two days of classroom time, they’ll have the knowledge and information necessary to participate in nine days of hands-on training.
| Date Taken: | 07.18.2013 |
| Date Posted: | 07.22.2013 17:46 |
| Story ID: | 110618 |
| Location: | MCGREGOR RANGE, NM, US |
| Hometown: | DEL RIO, TX, US |
| Hometown: | EL PASO, TX, US |
| Hometown: | JOPLIN, MO, US |
| Hometown: | KNOB NOSTER, MO, US |
| Web Views: | 167 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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