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PAKTYA PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- Of the three Afghan National Army non-commissioned officer courses offered at Forward Operating Base Thunder, the most dramatic is the 1U course (pronounced ‘one uniform’), which fast tracks Afghans from civilian to a U.S. Army staff sergeant equivalent in one 12-week block of training.
Unlike other courses administered by the ANA’s Training Kandak, 203rd Thunder Corps, the 1U course has no equivalent in either the British or the U.S. militaries. Much like U.S. Army basic training, the course begins with instruction on marching and facing movements, as well as classroom instruction on things like rank structure, discipline and military bearing, said Afghan National Army Staff Sgt. Dostmuhamad Noori, a 1U course instructor.
Once the troops have mastered the basic principles of soldiering, they train on M16A2 rifles, which have come to replace AK47 rifles as the standard weapon in the Afghan National Security Forces. As the course progresses, recruits take on more complicated military tasks, such as leading squads through fire maneuvers, the construction of miniature terrain models to aid with maneuvers and convoy and counter improvised explosive devise operations, said Noori, who is from Kapisa Province.
Abdulrab Rasul Cobandi, 1U student, said his favorite moment of the course came during the segment on searching vehicles. When one of the trainees bent down to look under the vehicle for explosives, an instructor yelled, “Boom!” The soldier was startled, and everyone had a laugh at his expense.
Cobandi, who has had prior service with the Afghan Uniform Police and lost part of his thumb during an ambush in Ghazni province two years ago, said he expects to be given an instructor position upon graduating the 1U course, though he has no other ANA experience. Both Noori and the coalition forces advisers confirmed the practice of promising and awarding instructor positions to students is common in the 1U course.
U.S. Army Lt. Col. Gary E. Smith, a training officer with the Indiana National Guard’s Regional Corps Training Team 2, said the training was only recently done by private contractors. The creation of designated instructor slots and a vetting process for instructors are new developments that still have bugs to work out, he said.
“It’s their army,” said Smith, a resident of Kendallville, Ind. “The only way they are going to learn is by doing the training themselves. We just need to keep improving [the training] and stabilize the instructors here … There are still blemishes, still things to be worked out … but we’re building an army here, and that not an easy thing to do.”
Education is prerequisite for entrance into the 1U course, which in Afghanistan, a country with a literacy rate of less than 30 percent according to UNICEF, means basic literacy.
“If they can read and write, they’re at the top,” said U.S. Army Sgt. Ryan Ronning, of Headquarters Support Battalion, 117th Field Artillery Regiment who works with the British-led advisor team.
The current cycle has about 80 students who come from all parts of Afghanistan.
Tensions often run high between the Pashto- and Dari-speaking elements. Ronning, born and raised in La Pine, Ore., said he witnessed multiple fights break out among the Afghan troops from different areas, though they were usually quelled by instructors before serious damage could be done.
Noori confirmed ethnic tensions were a problem, despite the fact instructors teach in both languages to alleviate tensions between Dari- and Pashto-speaking soldiers.
While the squad-sized element of British and U.S. soldiers is unable to change some of the fundamental problems with the course, they continue to work with the ANA administrators to improve the quality of its final cycle, which began on Aug. 21, and will continue until graduation, Nov. 11.
U.S. Army Cpl. Brandon R. Metzer, who, like Ronning, is originally part of the HSB, 117th FAR, is the member of the British-led advisor team most directly involved with the 1U course.
When Metzer, a resident of Colorado Springs, Colo., arrived, he noticed the Afghans in the 1U course wasted an hour a day marching down to the battalion armory to draw weapons and other training equipment. The advisor team helped move the equipment closer.
“When I got here, nothing was going well. We had no conex, no supplies and no body armor,” said 21-year-old ANA Capt. Nabiullah Qaridaza, a newly-arrived course officer, through the aid of an interpreter. “Now we have everything.”
Metzer said he found considerable success both educating Qaridaza on how to do supply paperwork and advising training NCOs on how to do their work. Qaridaza who hails from Kapisa province, added that the quality of the instruction depended critically on maintaining a good supply chain.
“If we have good instructors and good materials, they are going to pay attention,” he said. “If they are learning about radios and there are no radios available to practice on, they will just chill with each other.”
Metzer’s view, based on his experience with the course officers, is somewhat more optimistic.
“It was extremely difficult … but now [the ANA officers] see the importance of having NCOs lead soldiers,” Metzer said. “It’s not where it needs to be, but it’s on the right track.”
Noori, who spent five years in the ANA, said he had seen improvement in the recruits since the course began.
“This course is going really well, and I’m grateful for the British soldiers, they are really helping us,” Noori said. “When I ask the students questions, they are giving good answers.”
| Date Taken: | 10.09.2010 |
| Date Posted: | 10.19.2010 16:35 |
| Story ID: | 58446 |
| Location: | PAKTYA PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 52 |
| Downloads: | 5 |
This work, ‘One Uniform’ course fast-tracks Afghan NCOs, by SGT Spencer Case, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
