Desert Warrior, Army's newest school

Photo By Marcus Fichtl | Spc. Joel Sayre, infantryman from Beaverton, Ore., assigned to the 1st Battalion, 37th Armor Regiment, 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Armored Division, conducts combat tracking during the inaugural Desert Warrior class at Fort Bliss, Texas, June 5, 2015. Desert Warrior is the Army’s newest leadership school spearheaded by the Iron Training Detachment, 1st Armored Division. It is the Army’s first purely desert course since the desert phase of Ranger School discontinued it in 1995. (U.S. Army photo by: Sgt. Marcus Fichtl)  

FORT BLISS, TX, UNITED STATES

06.08.2015

Story by Sgt. Marcus Fichtl  

24th Theater Public Affairs Support Element

FORT BLISS, Texas – For fourteen years, the U.S. military has conduct combat operations in Southwest Asia, but the Army’s Ranger School desert phase, which ended in 1995, was the last school to teach desert combat skills.

Twenty years later on June 8, the 1st Armored Division ‘s Iron Training Detachment, bridged the operational experience of Iraq and Afghanistan with the academics of desert survival as the first Desert Warrior class air assaulted onto Fort Bliss.

The air assault launched the first operational phase of the 19-day Desert Warrior class. The class teaches junior noncommissioned officers desert survival and desert warfare.

“Desert Warrior is a course designed for small unit leaders in a desert environment,” said Sgt. 1st Class Dionicio Zarrabal, head Desert Warrior instructor. “The heart of this class is that it’s a leadership course for junior leaders.”

According to Zarrabal and 1st Armored Division leadership, the course will bring desert warfare back to the basics of direct action and long-term sustained operations without the support of a forward operating base or company outposts.

“The students will have to face operations for five consecutive days,” Zarrabal said. “Everything they do will have to be coordinated through higher headquarters; nothing will be given to them. They will have to think outside the box.”

Simply, it will be infantry squads versus the desert and the enemy. There will be no post or quick reaction force for support.

In addition, outside of coordinated airdrops for food, ammo and water, the Desert Warrior students’ entire support is inside their rucksacks and with their squad’s comrades.

Pack too much and extra weight will crush knees and backs by day three; pack too little day five’s bunker clearing objective may be too much to overcome.

After the week of desert survival, the students will stay in the field for another field exercise and the course will culminate with a live-fire exercise.

To help the students think outside the box before their air assault mission, they spent a week beginning on June 1 learning about the desert environment. The training included counter-improvised explosive classes, combat tracking courses, advanced land navigation and a detailed understanding of the plants and animals of the Chihuahua desert. A dozen Desert Warrior instructors, who have combat experience as infantrymen and tankers, taught the students.

Along with a highly experienced cadre, the 1st Armored Division looked at other schools for inspiration and concepts to forge the class.

Zarrabal said the course took inspiration from the Jungle Warfare course, taught in Hawaii, the Northern Warfare Training Center in Alaska and the Army Reconnaissance Course in Georgia.

Although the instructors incorporated aspects of the other courses, the Desert Warrior course is Army-unique.

“We’re not trying to emulate anyone, we want to make our own school unique from everyone else,” Zarrabal said. “We’re the new kids on the block; we want to put a good course together that Soldiers and their units will value.”

• Date Taken: 06.08.2015
• Date Posted: 06.09.2015 10:55
• Story ID: 165948
• Location: FORT BLISS, TX, US
• Hometown: EL PASO, TX, US