By 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division
CAMP STRIKER, Iraq – Aviators from the U.S. Army's Directorate of Evaluation and Standardization visited 3rd Combat Aviation Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division at Baghdad International Airport the week of, March 10.
The DES aviators traveled to 3rd CAB from the U.S. Army Aviation War Fighting Center at Fort Rucker, Ala., to help provide feedback to the unit while they're deployed.
"We assess, evaluate and train units," said Col. Steve Smith, director of DES. "We do it for all of Army aviation globally. It's not just for units in the continental United States."
Smith said the DES team approaches things differently depending on whether they are stateside or visiting a deployed unit. "When we're stateside we do mostly evaluations," he said. "Here we're not evaluating, we're assessing."
A deployed unit actually requests the visit and determines the topics to be covered. From there, the DES tailors their visit to the unit's needs.
Standardization pilots and crewmembers from DES went on combat missions with 3rd CAB pilots and crewmembers to assess how things are done. This serves several purposes, said Smith. The DES team acts as an objective set of eyes and gives the unit immediate feedback on everything from safety to tactics.
"The other thing we do is we learn while we're here because this battlefield changes so rapidly," Smith said.
The team takes information they learn back to Fort Rucker where, if need be, training can be adjusted and the lessons learned can be incorporated into doctrine.
The DES team also uses their time to go over accidents and talk to CAB pilots about the causes. The aviators hear about accidents but they don't necessarily know the cause, said Smith. His team can brief the pilots using information garnered from investigations.
The standardization pilots and enlisted nonrated crewmembers from DES are beginning a tour of three out of four CABs in Iraq, including the 12th CAB at Camp Taji and the 49th CAB at Balad Airbase.
