Vigilant Warriors Never Stop Training!

GUANTANAMO BAY, CUBA

08.14.2016

Story by Sgt. Sarah Kirby 

Joint Task Force Guantanamo Public Affairs

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (AUGUST 14, 2016) — Do you think you can assemble an OE-254 antenna system in less than 20 minutes? First, you and your fire team must establish the communication site’s grid coordinates, along with proving your ability to assemble and disassemble an M-16 rifle and respond to a gas attack while performing surveillance. Joint Task Force Guantanamo Troopers with the 308th Military Police Company compete against one another in squad level situational training exercise lanes split up over Aug. 10 and Aug. 13 on U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
“This exercise is designed for the squads to do eight lanes of different warrior core tasks and battle drills, which is evaluated depending on their performance,” said U.S. Army 1st Lt. Joshua Clark, the 308th MP Co. executive officer. “This allows the leaders to assess where their squads are and where their Soldiers are and see where their strengths and weaknesses are; it gives them the knowledge of what they need to train on in the future.”
STX Lanes are short, scenario-driven, mission-oriented exercises designed to train a group of related battle drills through practice, according to GlobalSecurity.org, an online resource for basic military references. Throughout the duration of the exercise, the observer controller trainer evaluates the group of individuals performing the exercise, which helps to sustain task proficiency. The Army service schools develop the exercises and then publish them in Army Training and Evaluation Program and Mission Training Plans.
The participating squads divided into two fire teams, each team performing eight-training lanes and then evaluated on a 100 point scale, according to their concept of operation statement. The highest combined score of both fire teams determines the winning squad.
“The Soldiers are training primarily over their basic Soldier tasks,” continued Clark. “There are a few job specific MP tasks they are working on, but it’s primarily keeping those basic skills sharp. This really allows the Soldiers to work together, to understand how they perform and how the other squads perform. We are also building upon unit cohesion; this type of training brings the whole unit together.”
Some of the lanes are more job specific and require the Soldiers to perform according to their military occupational specialties, such as establishing security and searching a vehicle; performing as a guard and challenging persons entering a secured area is one of the primary duties performed by the MPs of JTF GTMO.
“Although this is a deployment area, our MPs are mainly performing corrections work in the law enforcement field,” said U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Daniel Garcia, the observer coach trainer for the traffic control point lane. “We are training them more within their regular MP fieldwork, such as security and guarding; we are refreshing them on these skills as they could easily lose them if they are not using them over time.”
The 308th MP Co. command set up the training with an incentive for the winning squad.
“The lanes are setup as a competition to motivate the squads and keep them engaged with their full performance throughout the exercise,” said Clark. “If the squad wins, the commander has granted them a special day off.”
“With their current missions in the camps our Soldiers rarely work in the teams and squads of the unit they came here with,” said Garcia. “This training gives them the opportunity to work together again and prepares them for whatever our next mission will be.”

• Date Taken: 08.14.2016
• Date Posted: 09.14.2016 09:10
• Story ID: 208599
• Location: GUANTANAMO BAY, CU