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QUANTICO, Va. - “We’ll get up to 600 people out here sometimes on weekends,” said Gunnery Sgt. Alexander Ferguson, operations chief for the Reserve Support Unit stationed at Camp Upshur in the northwest corner of the base. The team coordinates with reserve units from all services that want to come out to Upshur to train.
In the last month, reservists from the Chemical Biological Incident Response Force of the Naval Support Center in Indian Head, Md.; Bravo Co. of the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion of Fort Detrick, Md.; the Marine Corps Civil Affairs School of Marine Corps Base Quantico; the Marine Security Company of Camp David in Maryland; 4th Medical Battalion Surgical Support Company Bravo of Washington, D.C.; the Marine Corps’ 4th Combat Engineer Battalion of Baltimore; and the Navy’s Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center of Suitland, Md., have all trained at Camp Upshur.
Reserve units that are based in Virginia and the surrounding states and don’t have Marine Corps field environments of their own trek out to Upshur to take advantage of Marine Corps-scaled ranges, vast tracts of land for field exercises, various combat simulators and access to facilities at The Basic School, Ferguson said. The camp’s rows of Quonset huts house enough beds for 1,000 troops, in addition to classroom space.
“We’re like an [inspector and instructor] station for reserve entities up and down the East Coast,” Ferguson said. Every year, he said, his eight-man unit supports at least 200 entities and 13,000 personnel who come to Upshur to train, 90 percent of them from installations other than Quantico.
The reserve unit from the Kennedy Irregular Warfare Center has come to the camp every year since 2009, and the reservists were there again for the week of March 11.
A major reason they came was to use Upshur’s Virtual Combat Convoy Trainers, said Navy Chief Petty Officer Tim Francis, the unit’s senior enlisted adviser. The simulators are mock-ups of humvees, parked in trailers and surrounded by video screens to create a virtual environment. “You can have multiple vehicles that are all on different trails, but they’re all operating in the same environment, so you can see each others vehicles,” Francis said.
Unlike most intelligence units, those at the Irregular Warfare
Center, part of the Office of Naval Intelligence, accompany Navy SEAL units in the field, so they need combat training.
Among the camp’s other simulators are the Humvee Egress Assistance Trainer and MRAP Egress Trainer, which simulate vehicle rollovers; the Operator Driving Simulator, which can replicate the experience of driving a humvee, a mine-resistant ambush-protected vehicle or a seven-ton truck; and the Indoor Simulated Marksmanship Trainer, said Ferguson.
Francis said his reservists also did some classroom training while at Upshur and had FBI trainers teach them how to glean information from a sensitive location, much the way forensic investigators examine a crime scene. And the unit took advantage of the abundant open space to run its annual, multi-day field exercise.
“They’ll go out in the woods and move from one site to another to practice the skills they’ve learned,” he said.
Ferguson estimated the camp includes about 650 acres of land, most of it forested.
An added bonus for the Irregular Warfare Center is the camp’s relatively primitive facilities, in contrast to its cutting-edge training equipment. “Because of where [Naval Special Warfare] units go, we have to train our people to work in austere locations,” Francis said.
Ferguson said his team also helps many reserve units use facilities at The Basic School to meet their swim and gas chamber qualifications, and works with the Range Management Branch and the Operations Division to let active-duty units train at the camp.
Camp Upshur was built during World War II for the Platoon Leaders Class, Ferguson said. In 1955, it was home to The Basic School, and the Drug Enforcement Agency conducted its training there from 1989 until 2009. The Reserve Support Unit didn’t move there until 2007.
Ferguson said the only similar installation in the region is the Army training center at Fort A.P. Hill, outside Bowling Green, Va., making Upshur a valuable asset.
With the physical space for small-unit tactics, the state-of-the-art training technology and the authentic austere environment, Lt. Cmdr. Tom Croci, the Irregular Warfare Center’s senior executive officer, said the camp is ideal for the kind of training his reservists need.
“We’re extremely grateful to the Marine Corps for letting us use this facility, which is perfect for blending the tactical piece with the analytical piece of our work,” Croci said.
| Date Taken: | 03.28.2012 |
| Date Posted: | 03.29.2012 10:47 |
| Story ID: | 85952 |
| Location: | QUANTICO, VIRGINIA, US |
| Web Views: | 141 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
This work, Simulators, space and simplicity draw units to train at Camp Upshur, by Michael DiCicco, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
