Photo By Patricia Dubiel | Brig. Gen. Richard Lebel gets a rundown of the situation at the 572nd BEB TOC from one...... read more read more
One of those leaders was Maj. Gen. Thomas Carden, adjutant general for Georgia. He said he has three companies here for the rotation — an engineer support company, elements of a transportation company and a maintenance company.
“The combat training centers are the best opportunities we have to train our forces for combat. It’s all about building readiness, capability and lethality,” he said. “JRTC gives us an opportunity to replicate the most challenging conditions that our Soldiers may face in combat, and, in a larger context, it allows us to bend the odds in our favor so that we can accomplish the mission and bring everybody home.”
Carden said the rotation ienhances the Soldiers’ combat skill set and lethality to addresses a broad range of conditions and contingencies they may encounter downrange.
“Decisive action is arguably one of the most challenging forms of war because it represents the complexity of combat,” said Carden. “We have been fighting a counter insurgency fight for the last 18-19 years, and now we have to be ready for adversaries like Russia, North Korea, China, Iran and still fight the ISIS counter insurgency — we have to maintain a capability to fight across the full spectrum of combat operations.”
Brig. Gen. Gregory Knight, adjutant general for Vermont, has the largest number of troops in the rotation at 2,000. He said a JRTC rotation increases a Soldier’s confidence at multiple levels.
“The rotation gives them confidence in themselves, their equipment, their teammates and in doing the job for which they are trained,” he said. “The benefit to training in this environment is the ability to identify any shortcomings and work toward making yourself better,” he said. “The more you train here and the more you learn, the less you’re going to have to learn — more painfully — downrange.”
Second Lt. Madailein Blaney, the battalion S2 for the 572nd Brigade Engineer Battalion from Vermont, said this was her first JRTC rotation and it has given her an opportunity to apply many of the things she learned at Basic Officer Leaders Course, or BOLC.
“I have been able to translate all of that schoolhouse training directly into this scenario,” she said. “We were transitioning from the counter insurgency threat into more of a hybrid threat while I was in BOLC. The enemy is now more of an equal, near-peer threat and we have to be prepared for that. But we still have to manage that with civilians on the battlefield, understanding what’s happening at the rear, and planning for sustainment and security.”
Blaney said smaller training exercises like those conducted at home station are fine for understanding the basics, but being immersed in an environment like JRTC triggers the combat mindset.
“Having the air assets flying over us all the time — both red air (enemy) and U.S. air (friendly) — and having actual issues with convoys, make (the training) realistic. We have to do jumping (tactical operation center), which means once the enemy knows where we are, we have to pack everything up and move,” she said. “This adds an element of awareness, executing noise and light discipline, we need security on all the time, and it’s all go-go-go.”
Sgt. Jeremy Nadeau, a medic with Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Medical Platoon, 572nd BEB, said there was a lot of field craft involved in this exercise, which was good for some of the “greener” Soldiers that have not been Soldiers for more than a weekend at a time. Nadeau is a veteran of JRTC, having completed a rotation about five years ago.
“I like the training environment offered here. It tests Soldiers and leaders, as well as the sustainment elements, including medical and (food and water),” said Nadeau. “It puts more pressure on the command teams to ensure food is there for your troops and to have a back up plan in case your convoy gets hit on the way out — you don’t want to end up stranded without food and water.”
Knight was visiting the 572nd TOC and made time to walk around the area and speak with as many Soldiers as he could.
He said it was important for him to visit his Soldiers during this rotation because he’s been in their shoes, and he wanted them to see that their leadership is engaged and supportive of their efforts during a rotation as rigorous as this one at the JRTC.
“I’ve lived through a combat training center rotation — ours was at the National Training Center in Fort Irwin, California — and it was hard, as it is designed to be, but it was important for us to see our senior leaders come out and maybe share some of their experiences,” he said. “No one wants absentee leaders.”
| Date Taken: | 05.17.2019 |
| Date Posted: | 05.17.2019 14:48 |
| Story ID: | 322827 |
| Location: | FORT POLK, LOUISIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 166 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Thousands of Army National Guard Soldiers take on Rotation 19-07, by Patricia Dubiel, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
No keywords found.
