Courtesy Photo | Staff Sgt. Kevin Ashby from C Company, 2nd Battalion 152nd Infantry (Long Range...... read more read more
By T.D. Jackson
Camp Atterbury Public Affairs
BUTLERVILLE, Ind. – No one likes a know-it-all, and combat veteran Travis Krauss, a special projects manager for government contracting company Via Global, would be the first to tell you why.
"Someone who does not catch on to the maneuvers right away but can control himself is better than someone who knows everything but can not keep calm," said Krauss, who recently taught a Specialized Tactical Concepts program at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, a sub-installation of Camp Atterbury.
"This course is not a matter of knowledge but one of confidence," he explained. "If you're confident then you can keep your adrenaline low."
For 10 days Krauss and his team of trainers instructed national guard Soldiers on tactical explosive entry concepts and close quarters battle.
During the explosive entry concepts training, instructors introduced Soldiers to different breaching or forcible approach techniques, tactics and procedures to include explosives handling, breaching mission planning and explosive breaching. The close quarters battle instruction taught Soldiers how to engage the enemy with personal weapons at very short range, potentially to the point of hand-to-hand combat. Right before the close-quarter battle instruction, Krauss said his team refreshed the Soldiers on the importance of proper marksmanship.
Krauss said basic Army training teaches Soldiers the mechanics of marksmanship: how to aim, how to fire and how to fire from different positions.
"Though the mechanics of marksmanship are important, they are no more important, if even as important, as the ability to implement those mechanics," Krauss said.
Krauss said it is incredibly demanding to successfully implement the mechanics under the psychological, physical, and physiological stresses of a combat environment.
"This type of advanced marksman instruction [that we teach] gets into the psychology and physiology of marksmanship; whether or not the Soldier is exhausted or he has a 60-pound rucksack and he's got sand in his teeth and there are people on the right of you and on the left of you firing," Krauss said, listing the many factors that could be involved before, during and after a Soldier fires at a target.
"In our different programs, we take our subjects, or students, and we teach them more than just what to shoot, we teach them when to shoot," he said. "We don't just teach them how to shoot; we teach them why to shoot. Additionally, we teach them all the surrounding factors that play into effect in these situations and scenarios."
Krauss said the Specialized Tactical Concepts program was designed to ensure deploying Soldiers' success in combat.
"The appropriate quality training will ensure a higher success rate in combat, which simply means we bring more Soldiers home," he said.
2nd Lt. Phil Christian, a participant in the training, agreed that the instruction was beneficial to deploying Soldiers.
"It gives them realistic training and techniques that they more than likely won't find anywhere else," Christian said.
Christian, a project manager at Muscatatuck, said he would rate both the instruction and the training a "10".
"The instructors they brought in were extremely knowledgeable and they were able to give us real world examples that made everything conceptually understandable," Christian said. "The training was top notch because we got to get hands-on experience and we put into play everything that was taught in the classroom portion."
Capt. Nicholas Roukas, the officer in charge of operations at Muscatatuck, said the training left him hungry for more.
"The entire block of training was impressive to me," he said. "The three phases of combat marksmanship, explosive breaching, and close quarters combat contained points of instruction that national guard units are not traditionally exposed to."
Roukas said the training was especially important because it focused on keeping oneself and others alive and reinforced the warrior mindset of eliminating the enemy.
"Often in our organization confidence in tools of war and the psychology of close combat are overlooked, and I was extremely happy to see the leadership support it," Roukas said.
So impressed was Roukas, that he intends to advocate for Specialized Tactical Concepts training in the future when he deploys.
"All students involved were fortunate to get the opportunity to participate in this training," he said. "I hope to deploy as a company commander and will push for more and more training like this."
| Date Taken: | 02.02.2009 |
| Date Posted: | 02.02.2009 15:38 |
| Story ID: | 29559 |
| Location: | US |
| Web Views: | 244 |
| Downloads: | 127 |
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