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    54th Brigade Engineer Battalion Validates All Military Intelligence Systems

    MITS Recovery

    Photo By Spc. Ryan Lucas | U.S. Army paratroopers assigned to Danger Company, 54th Brigade Engineer Battalion,...... read more read more

    GERMANY

    03.26.2020

    Story by Spc. Ryan Lucas 

    173rd Airborne Brigade

    Grafenwoehr, GERMANY —Paratroopers assigned to Danger Company, 54th Brigade Engineer Battalion, 173rd Airborne Brigade validated all Military Intelligence systems and standard operating procedures during tier three training of a newly developed certification process called Military Intelligence Training Strategy, or MITS, Feb. 23 - March 10.

    As described by the associated training circular, MITS is a four tier, or phase, intelligence-centric certification event designed to train individuals, crews, and platforms to accurately answer intelligence requirements for the commander and certify respective intelligence disciplines in a field environment.

    MITS is “your standard for everything from individual tasks, crew tasks, …communicating with the other INTs [intelligence gathering disciplines], and then how to push that information to the brigade,” said Sgt. MacKenzie Laursen, team leader of a human intelligence collection team.

    This is the first time paratroopers from the 173rd Airborne Brigade have undergone the MITS certification process.

    The 173rd Airborne Brigade is the U.S. Army’s Contingency Response Force in Europe, providing rapidly deployable forces to Europe, Africa and Central Commands areas of responsibilities. Forward deployed across Italy and Germany, the brigade routinely trains alongside NATO allies to build partnerships and strengthen the alliance.

    MITS is the Army’s first standardized military intelligence training, ensuring an objective certification process across the force.

    The training strategy is broken into four tiers, beginning with soldiers’ individual tasks and each providing a more integrated level of certification until reaching tier one, the certification of the intelligence warfighting function of a military intelligence company (MICO).

    “We did tier three during our exercise in Germany,” said Laursen. Tier three “evaluates what the crew as a whole should be able to do and then how it actually integrates and becomes functional,” she continued.

    “Our job is to talk to people [and] ask them all the questions we need to know to answer the commander’s priority intelligence requirements,” said Laursen. “The biggest thing that we focus on is making sure that we understand all of our authorities and permissions, how we’re able to collect, what our focus is when we’re collecting, and then how to articulate that information so that it’s legible and actionable for the brigade.”

    Tier three was crucial for Laursen’s team to optimize their plan of communication when relaying intelligence to the commander.

    Moving from the third tier crew certification into the fourth tier, Danger Company will begin platform certification in April.

    Platform certification involves the collaboration of two or more crews, or teams, to perform a discipline activity, preparing the various intelligence disciplines of the MICO to enter into the final tier of MITS currently scheduled for July and August.

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    NEWS INFO

    Date Taken: 03.26.2020
    Date Posted: 03.27.2020 02:18
    Story ID: 365934
    Location: DE

    Web Views: 649
    Downloads: 0

    PUBLIC DOMAIN