HERAT, Afghanistan – A Mobile Training Team is teaching their first three-week Train the Instructor course at Camp Zafar, Herat province, which is scheduled to graduate Mar. 9.
Nineteen students are enrolled in the course and will soon become Afghan National Army instructors at Basic Warrior Course, the ANA version of Basic Military Training.
“Here we are teaching the instructors to become instructors and also teaching them techniques they can use to instruct better,” said U.S. Army Sfc. Brian Kitson, a 95th Infantry Division reservist from Edmond, Okla.
Mobile Trainer Team members travel from site to site at the BWCs across Afghanistan to teach basic military training techniques, based on Army techniques.
Coalition forces, including military mentors and Italian Carabinieri, teach the curriculum.
Centralized training courses are held in Kabul. However, there are benefits from standing up MTTs.
“We are short handed, so we send out mobile teams to train,” said Kitson. “By coming to them, [ANA NCOs] don’t have to leave their places of work, which is more convenient and faster for them, and they can continue to [lead] their soldiers.”
Kitson and his fellow mentor, U.S. Army Sfc. Christopher Rainey, relish in knowing that Afghans are taking control of their own destiny.
“They’re taking part in not only liberating their country, but making sure they have better infrastructure and better training … to do better things,” said Kitson. “I would like to see a future where they’re doing it all themselves.”
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