This is quite a long post and I'll divide it into two separate posts. The first being the training at FT Riley and the second will be deployment from FT Riley to Kabul. A friend of mine, in fact the guy that helped build this document, was just there and says that training hasn't changed much at all, this is BAD as I felt that the training was pretty much useless at prepping us to accomplish the bread and butter ETT mission. Combat Advisor. You will deploy with the skill set you show up there with, that's the bottomline. So start your prep now obviously if you're reading this you've taken the initiative and are bringing the fight to the enemy.TRAININGHere are some observations I made regarding deployment through FT Riley as part of an ETT, from August to October 2008. The standard disclaimer applies: opinions expressed here are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of URF 47137, the Nevada Army National Guard, the United States Army or the Department of Defense. I reserve the right to make mistakes or be wrong. Nothing here is intended to sharp-shoot or bad-mouth any person, organization or institution. I am just detailing my observations and opinions in hope that they may be beneficial to others deploying on an ETT/MiTT through FT Riley Log onto Battle Command Knowledge System (BCKS) through AKO. Join the Transition Team/Advisor group and read the postings. Most will be boring and irrelevant, but there are some very helpful posts and documents.Much of the following may be irrelevant, because after I wrote most of this we found that ETT deployment and training is scheduled to move to JRTC in the future.Mobilization packets were at the mob station but not readily available to SRP personnel. Teams should make an additional mob packet to hand carry through the SRP. Bring many copies of your orders. Even when they say you don’t need them. Carry them with you.SRP took all day. Medical took several hours, many of which were consumed waiting in line for someone to confirm that you do not, in fact, need anything done at that station. You will never get that time back. If you haven’t had a small pox vaccination in the past 10 years, you will get one. You will have to get it checked a week after you get the shot, but we did not have any time on the training schedule for that. You have to squeeze it in on your own time.Most of the training, briefings and issues are locked in. You can’t change the day or time because there are several classes with hundreds of Soldiers, Airmen and Sailors moving around. The horse blanket is like Tetris, but some things can be changed. If you have down time, recon the places you have to go, pre-coordinate what you can. Information is sometimes scarce, but I generally noticed that if you ask for something, people are willing to help you. Oh, the training schedule you got three months ago, or a week ago, will be no good when you get here. There are 1630 Team Leader meetings daily and the schedule will be updated.If possible, link up with people from classes ahead of you. They may be able to give you good G2 on what to expect. I also linked up with people from classes after us and did the same for them.Having ISOPREP completed prior to arrival saves lots of time. Bring a copy of your certificate with you to the ISOPREP station.We had a lot of down time in the first week and a half at Ft Riley, including a four day weekend. We secured the use of a 12 passenger van for the duration of our stay at Riley. It was extremely valuable, not only for MWR, but for running errands around post. It saved us quite a bit of time. There is a post bus and post taxi available if you don’t have a POV or team vehicle.Uniform and equipment issue did not include everything on the issue list, for example, we were not issued ACUs, but were fitted for, and some of us were, issued fire retardant ACUs, to be worn only on deployment, not during training. You may consider bringing additional ACUs.In general, you will be treated like adults. There are no formations, at least on our team. Chow, bus and training schedules are posted and it is up to you to be there where/when you should. We spent the first two weeks in-processing in the Custer Hill section of post. We then moved to Camp Funston for training for the remainder of our time.There was lots of time for PT, before, during and after the duty day, while in-processing.You will have to stencil your duffel bags prior to moving to Funston. Stencils can be made at Bldg 350 (Main Post). Nobody will tell you that, however. Get down there as early as you can, preferable week one when you have down time. There is no published standard for the stenciling. On the side of the duffels we used last name, first initial, last four on one line and URF # on the second line, and battle roster number and “NV ETT” on the bottom of the bag. We painted the bottom of our bags for visual recognition. Use whatever format you want. I highly recommend getting the stencils early and painting your bags right after CIF issue. You will also get another duffel bag and a rucksack issued at RFI, so save your paint and stencils.There is a library in the D/101 FSB orderly room with tons of GTAs, books, smart cards, etc, for Afghanistan and Iraq. All of that stuff is available for you to take, free of charge, and keep. Nobody will tell you this.You get issued a lot of gear you may not need/want to take to theater with you. Some guys sent there stuff home, only to have to get it shipped to Riley for turn in. Several guys on our team agreed to get a self-storage unit for our excess gear. Inventory your stuff, photograph it, keep copies, etc., just in case some tweaker breaks in and steals your stuff while you are deployed. We eventually used Lock & Leave Storage on FT Riley, building 7640, (785) 784-8007. Their office is located near the SRP site and the storage units are near the new PX. It cost us under $200 for 10 months.Overall, I found that D/101- FSB was disorganized and a lot of time was wasted.When you move to Funston it will be very helpful if you have POVs to haul your gear, rather than load the trucks that are provided on the morning you move. Funston is mostly 40-man open bays. There is lots of talk about the elusive eight-man rooms but we found that they are almost exclusively issued to females. Get used to the fact that you will be in 40-man bays. You will draw weapons prior to moving to Funston then turn them in following your last training event for the week. Your training company (A/2-34 AR in our case) will have you complete hand receipts for sensitive items and record the serial numbers on a spreadsheet. If your company lets you (ours did, others did not), get the spreadsheets and fill them out yourself before turn-in. It saved us a lot of time, and helped the training company, as well. They will also have you fill out daily SITREPs and a CIF/ACU/RFI issue shortage log, POV parking list and a few other forms.Training at Funston is somewhat better organized than at D/101 but there is still a lot of flex and down time. Our first two weeks were dedicated to intro to combat advising, basic counterinsurgency and Dari. The training was OK but I expected a much higher caliber and OPTEMPO. COIN was very basic. The biggest problem I saw with this training, and much of the training throughout our stay at Riley, is that people from all walks of military life are going through the training. Navy E4s going to PRTs in Afghanistan are sitting through the same training as Army O4s and E7s going to Iraq or Afghanistan as advisors, and Air Force O5s leading CSS teams. It is hard to focus the training on the target audience for that reason. In the Dari class we learned some basic phrases and words. Advanced Dari is available for anyone who wants to take it. We were initially told by our training company commander we could only send two per team, but the instructor said we could send as many as we wanted. We listened to the commander and sent two. There was only one other guy in the class and he dropped after the first day. Disregard the commander; send as many guys who want to go.At Funston training is normally conducted Monday morning through Saturday at noon. Saturday afternoon and Sunday are “team time”, which meant time off for us. It is strictly personal preference, but I strongly recommend getting off Ft Riley. It helped maintain our sanity and team harmony. Topeka and Kansas City are a reasonable drive from Ft Riley, and have plenty of hotels and other activities.Our next week was drivers training, basic commo, IED training and CLS. Drivers training included PMCS, HEAT (roll-over trainer), recovery and changing a tire in the morning and driving in the afternoon. We were done our driving portion in about an hour, and done for the day. If at all possible, try to get your team in the first iteration of driving so you don’t have to sit around for an hour or two waiting for everyone else to drive. Night training was about the same. We came to Riley with 1151 training completed and licenses issued. We got new licenses issued. Training in IEDs (the biggest killed on the battlefield) was four hours of Power Point and lecture. The instructors were good but I think it should have included some practical application or hands-on training. Most of our team had taken CLS three or six months prior to mobilizing. We all still had to complete CLS. The training was pretty good despite a class size of over 100 students. I was surprised, I didn’t expect much but it was a very good refresher. Everyone deploying to Afghanistan gets a CLS bag, so we each got one. They issue one bag for every two Soldiers going to Iraq.We had a week of specialized advanced training, including joint coalition effects/call for CAS, advanced communication, Blue Force Tracker, advanced medical, CSS, and some other topics. Training varied in quality. I was fortunate to attend coalition effects/CAS, which was beneficial to me. The class covered CAS capabilities, calling for CAS, and practical exercises using a call for fire simulator. A team member who attended advanced medical said the training was very good, but very advanced. A practical exercise included treating combat casualties under simulated combat conditions. Nobody will tell you this, but team members who go through the advanced medical training can draw additional Class VIII at Guardian City. They can get a medic pack, and just about everything they’re qualified to use. Team members reported that advanced commo and CSS were of marginal value, and that the BFT class was good.During the course of the training you will have several leader engagements, which are short role playing exercises in which team members interact with host nation security forces, community leaders, or other coalition military members. I found them to be interesting, and useful, but too short. They last about 20 minutes each. Some team members who do not have experience in dealing with people from foreign cultures, negotiating or problem solving found the engagements challenging. I recommend you send your inexperienced members to these engagements.While at Funston you will go to several live fire ranges. We did crew served weapons in one day (the M2 and M240 day and night qualification, foreign weapons and M249 familiarization fire only). We did M4 zero, day and night qualification and M9 qualification in one day, too. During PMI our fairly experienced combat arms team worked with a relatively inexperienced Navy/Air Force CSS team to help them with PMI and the Engagement Skills Trainer. I think it helped our advisory skills, assisted the Navy/Air Force people qualify, and relieved the training cadre of manpower/time issues. The training company commander said he was going to change the POI to include this for future classes. We spent a portion of a day on Mk19 live fire. Depending on the size of your team, one or two team members will be required to qualify on the M2, M240 and Mk19. Everyone else has to fire for familiarization only. The way it generally works is everyone will shoot. Those who qualify during the day will then have to qualify at night. Ranges tend to take a long time. You go as a group of teams, not just your team, and the whole group stays until everyone is complete. Expect to be on the crew served and individual weapons ranges all night waiting for the eight troops who can't qualify to get it right.I found that most of the very good training, like the IED class, was shorter than the mundane or boring training. One example is the tactical questioning (TQ), tactical site exploitation (TSE) training. The instructors we had for this class were MPs, interrogators, and legal specialists, who were all very competent, appeared to be subject matter experts, and very enthusiastic about the training. The classroom portion was followed by a short practical exercise. The teams went to a small MOUT site and conducted a TSE, searching a building and questioning detainees. There were role players acting as the detainees, Afghan National Army, and civilians. I believe our team had a distinct advantage, with nearly half of us being civilian law enforcement with experience in this type of activity. The common opinion of our team was that this block of instruction was one of the better ones we had, and this type of training allowed us to practice our advisory skills. Unfortunately, this type of training represents a small portion of the overall training schedule.The advisor stakes is billed as an opportunity for the training brigade to evaluate each team’s training status. It is a round-robin event with eight stations: language (translate 10 phrases from English to Dari), CLS, biometrics (enroll a person in a biometric database using the HIIDE system), Blue Force Tracker, M2 (clear, disassemble, assemble, set headspace and timing, function check), IED defeat, commo, fire support (call for fire, conduct close combat attack). The concept is that two members will be randomly selected to perform each task. If the team gets any no-gos the team leader has to develop a retraining plan and brief it to the brigade commander. Our team got the impression that it was a big deal so we spent a lot of time training each member on each station. When we finally did the stakes, it was a farce. It was disorganized, two evaluated tasks were changed a day and a half prior to event, and some of the stations included a class on the task immediately before evaluation. We didn’t wait to be randomly selected, either. Each team member has to complete a station, so we put each guy at the station where he was strongest. Overall, the advisor stakes was a waste of time. The only benefit was the skills we taught ourselves during train-up.Towards the end of the training cycle we went to the range for short range marksmanship, urban ops/shoot-house live fire, and convoy live fire. Short range marksmanship was OK. The cadre sacrifices some tactics in the name of safety. For example, not only do they not teach scanning after engagements, they prohibit scanning. They teach firing from the top of cover instead of firing from the side of cover. I find this unacceptable. After speaking with the range cadre, I found out that our group, consisting of an Army team, and two teams of Air Force, Navy and Army mixed, was the first group in about a week without a negligent discharge. In the preceding week, our range safety was nearly shot in the foot twice. I understand now why they train the way they do. I would prefer to see similarly skilled teams grouped together for this type of training, so the more advanced or skilled groups can progress, instead of training to the lowest common denominator.We received a full day of training on Battle Drill 6 (Enter a room, clear a building). In the past I had been unimpressed with the quality of room clearing training I received from the Army. This training was excellent. The MOUT site in which the training was conducted was impressive, as well. It consisted of a medium sized town, with newly constructed buildings of various sizes, stories, and layouts. I believe the tactics, techniques and procedures (TTPs) taught in this block were good, sound fundamentals. The NCOs teaching the class were knowledgeable and enthusiastic about the topic. Following a short block of instruction on room clearing, the team was allowed to use one of the MOUT buildings to practice and develop SOPs. Following that, we drew UTM (practice marking) rounds and practiced room clearing on two different one-story buildings. It was a good exercise, building on the previous instruction, and preparing us for the final exercise of the day. The team then conducted a full force-on-force assault on a multi-story building against some opposing forces, again using UTM rounds. It was a great exercise, which tied together everything that we had been taught and practiced that day. The only thing I would change is to give teams the opportunity to do an after the force-on-force, and then conduct a second force-on-force, to refine our techniques. All together I believe Battle Drill 6 training was a well prepared and executed block of instruction, and the NCOs involved are to be commended.There was a half-day exercise on advising host nation security forces (HNSF). The exercise was very good. Each team conducted a meet with HNSF leadership, was briefed on the plan, then moved to MOUT sites to conduct a cordon and search. Following that, the team received a follow-on mission, moved to a second MOUT site and conducted a second cordon. There were Soldiers and role players acting as HNSF and civilians on the battlefield (COB). It was an excellent exercise but too short. It was also the first time we actually got to practice our roles as advisors. This is exactly the type of training we should have been doing every week since we got here. I can’t say enough how impressed I was with this exercise.Mounted combat patrol was taught in three phases. Phase one was classroom instruction, followed by phase two, a sand table exercise. Phase three was conducted on a live fire range. At the range, you will get a range orientation briefing, do a quick talk-though of the lane, then conduct mounted combat patrol using blank ammunition as a rehearsal for the live fire. The team will then conduct a live fire mounted combat patrol. It is a good training exercise, and fun. Unfortunately, nobody leaves the range until all teams have completed the live fire. Be prepared to sit around the range for a few hours. Also, every 40mm Mk 19 round is accountable. We spent about two hours walking the range looking for 12 or 3 (lost accountability) expended 40mm cases. It is a minor issue, but things like that leave a sour taste in my mouth. Looking back at all of the live fire training you do, you actually get a lot of trigger time. Unfortunately, most of it is at the slow walk phase, with a lot of sitting around time interspersed. The capstone exercise is a one day event. You meet with your counterpart in the morning, receive the mission, formulate and refine your plan then execute. I won’t get into specifics but you run through a couple scenarios at different locations. I enjoyed the exercise but it was too short. I would have liked to have a few-day long exercise.Overall, the scenario-based exercises in which you actually advise are too few. You do the TSE/TQ, MOUT, and capstone. All together, it is two full days of advising. I would recommend doing short advisor exercises, roll playing, or scenarios every week starting in week one. I realize that this type of training is resource and time intensive, but I think our team benefitted the most from it.When all training is complete you will turn-in your gear. We actually turned-in our automation equipment early (AN/PVS-7s, binos, computers, printer, Phraselator, HIIDE, etc). We knew we wouldn’t need it for the capstone (except the HIIDE, which we borrowed from another team for the exercise), so we turned-in early. It was a calculated risk on our part, since we were initially told that we couldn’t. If you don’t need the equipment, and you can turn-in early, I recommend it. It was very beneficial to us on our scheduled turn-in day. There were six or seven teams scheduled to turn-in vehicles, commo, weapons, BII, automation, etc, at the same time. Lines tend to form quickly and it may take a while. Fortunately, our team took turn-in seriously. We thoroughly cleaned our equipment, especially weapons. In fact, the inspector looked at one part of our M240B, and accepted our crew served weapons for turn-in without checking either of our other two machineguns. We recognized the M240 gunner for his attention to detail for that. Some teams had to clean weapons or vehicles at the turn-in site because they weren’t cleaned to standard. I have two recommendations for turn-in: 1) retain your hand receipts when you draw your equipment, and inventory your equipment before turn-in; if at all possible, fill your shortages prior to turn-in; 2) clean your equipment thoroughly. By doing those two things, and turning-in automation early, we were able to complete turn-in first, in less than two hours.I have mixed feelings about the overall quality and usefulness of the training at FT Riley. Some of the training was of great quality and highly relevant, some of it not so much. I will say that our training company, A/2/34 AR, worked hard to support us, maximize our training value, and minimize our wasted time. Our company commander, first sergeant, and observer/controller (OC), deserve a lot of credit. That is not to say that Battalion or Brigade didn’t help, I just wasn’t exposed to them as much as I was to the Company.The best advice I heard so far regarding this training and the deployment was from an Army O6 who recently got back from a Police Mentor Team (PMT) mission. He said you will deploy with the skill sets your team members have when they report to Riley. Pick your teams, if you have that luxury, accordingly. Use their skills to train the rest of the team. But don’t count on staying together as a team in Afghanistan. Throughout our training we consistently heard that ETTs are generally split-up once they get to country After contacting the team we will be replacing, we confirmed that we, too, will be split.
Read the complete post at http://afghanlessons.blogspot.com/2009/05/ett-training-at-ft-riley.html
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May 01 2009, 08:21 PM
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A.L.L. = Afghan Lessons Learned for Soldiers