Photo By Spc. Rochelle Prince-Krueger | Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade staff work together to carry...... read more read more
Subscribe
FORT STEWART, Ga. - The Soldiers stood in formation early on the cold, dark Monday morning; steam from their breath in the near-freezing air wreathing their heads. A departure from their usual physical training formation at company headquarters, the Soldiers of the 3rd Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade staff were formed up at a remote corner of Evans Army Airfield, Ga. The Soldiers wouldn’t remain cold for long, though.
Once accountability was taken, they went to work pulling tents and gear out of containers and setting them up in the muddy ground.
The Soldiers built a fully operational headquarters from the ground up, one that would allow them to conduct the everyday work that happens at a brigade headquarters, without any pre-existing support.
“The paradigm for years has been going to a hardstand location, plugging in, and going operational,” said Lt. Col. Robert Patton, 3rd IDSB deputy commander. “This breaks that paradigm.”
Soldiers brought generators, environmental conditioning units and all the tables, chairs, and office equipment they needed from the Fort Stewart, and were able to conduct normal business for two weeks.
The austere environment was meant to mimic the conditions the Soldiers would experience if they were to deploy to a battlefield with no pre-existing logistical support, or, more likely, if the brigade is called upon to support civil authorities within the U.S. following a severe disaster.
“As we get back into expeditionary operations, we have to be proficient not only at our day-to-day jobs, but also at doing what we do in an austere environment,” said Patton. “One of the intents behind this training is getting the team comfortable operating in an austere environment, working through our systems, and giving mission command a very good workout.”
The 3rd IDSB accepted a yearlong Defense Support to Civil Authorities mission as of Feb. 1, which means if the US needs to call upon the Army to support a community following a major disaster or terrorist attack, the 3rd IDSB will likely be the first in the active Army to go. The conditions expected in a situation like this will be lacking pre-existing support systems, so the Soldiers must be prepared for anything.
“The more you do something, the better you get at it,” said Patton, and this is can be seen in the significant improvements made each time the brigade staff has conducted exercises like this.
The first time they conducted this training in November of last year, it took the Soldiers nearly a week to set up a tactical operations center and the support elements required. This time, they set up a fully powered, connected and otherwise functioning headquarters with less than 24 hours of work.
This success was just the start of the exercise though. Unlike previous iterations of this training, there was an element added in the second week.
Eight days into the exercise, a small detachment of Soldiers and a few vehicles rolled out from the main training site to establish a forward tactical command post. A TAC is a “rapidly deployable, expeditionary, self-sustaining mission command element,” said Capt. Joseph Downs, 3rd IDSB assistant operations officer.
“The TAC provides the brigade commander the ability to push forward a command element that can assume the roles and responsibilities of the headquarters,” said Downs, who took the lead in planning the TAC set up and execution. Basically, the TAC is a small, mobile command element that can move along with the front-most line of troops, set up supply lines and act as command and control while the more robust, main headquarters stays behind. Additionally, if the brigade is called upon to come to the aid in the event of a disaster, the TAC is able to pack up and move to almost immediately, giving the 3rd IDSB a line of communication to the location well before the main body of the brigade can mobilize.
Downs planned the mission based on the commander’s intent, which was to have a fully-manned and mobile TAC. He had to find the right people from the right sections within the brigade staff, including Soldiers from the intelligence, communications, operations and supply and maintenance sections.
The goal for this exercise was to have the TAC set up and fully mission capable within 45 minutes of arriving at the designated location; but on their first attempt, it took them just over an hour.
“So we packed everything back up, drove around, came back to the same spot, set up again; and on that one we hit our 45 minute mark,” said Downs.
Even though this was the first time the unit had set up a fully operational TAC with all equipment and personnel, Downs said their success at meeting their goal so quickly was due to “rehearsal, rehearsal, rehearsal,” echoing Patton’s comments that a lot of practice doing the right thing is key to good training.
“When you give what at first seems like a lofty goal, and you see people work together to achieve that goal,” said Patton. “Then they look back and see what they did, that’s very rewarding.”
| Date Taken: | 02.26.2016 |
| Date Posted: | 02.29.2016 16:49 |
| Story ID: | 190488 |
| Location: | FORT STEWART, GA, US |
| Web Views: | 90 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Breaking the paradigm – 3rd IDSB HQ builds TOC from the ground up, by MSG Ben Navratil, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
LEAVE A COMMENT