FORT BENNING, Ga. -- The Military Advisor Training Academy conducted Close Air Support training for the 2nd Security Force Assistance Brigade at the Selby Combined Arms Collective Training Facility Range at Fort Benning, Georgia, Feb. 27.
Close Air Support training is part of the Combat Advisor Training Course, which focuses on training the U.S. Army combat advisers to foreign security forces.
The practical exercise Feb. 27 involved the Soldiers of 2nd SFAB stationed in the brightly painted training facility, designed to look like a small town, where they took on simulated mortars and fire from an opposition force, all the while communicating with their foreign security partners.
Master Sgt. Troy Collard, the Field Team 1 noncommissioned officer in charge, said that Soldiers were doing both well with the intent of the instruction and with the further mission of the SFABs.
"Overall, we give the students this block of instruction to increase their survivability and lethality in austere environments," said Collard. "What the students are receiving now is just a snippet and a taste of effective use of rapport and cultural understanding and also in a complex scenario."
The Close Air Support training starts with academic instruction and then progresses through practical exercises, like that conducted Feb. 27, and increases in complexity throughout the week. In addition to Close Air Support training, the Soldiers of 2nd SFAB also receive instruction in map reading, land navigation, medical training, personnel recovery, culture, adviser assessment, training development, antiterrorism and force protection, and more.
"Follow-on parts of this course are going to instruct them on how to interact with a partner force, how to assess a partner force, how to work through interpreters," said Capt. Louis E. Fay, MATA operations assistant and one of the writers of the Close Air Support block of instruction. "Everything the SFAB does has to have a little bit of the adviser lens on it."
Following the successful completion of the Combat Advisor Training Course, Soldiers from 2nd SFAB will return to their home station of Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to continue to train for their mission of advising and assisting partner nations in developing their security force capability from the tactical to ministerial level.
The 1st SFAB recently hosted an activation ceremony at Fort Benning ahead of scheduled spring deployment to train, advise, and assist the Afghan national security forces.
To learn more about the SFAB mission, visit "U.S. Army STAND-TO! | Security Force Assistance Brigade" in the "Related Links" section on this page. To see more photos from this event, visit "PHOTO ALBUM: 2nd SFAB trains on Close Air Support" in the "Related Links" section.
Related Links:
Benning News on the Army News Service
Maneuver Center of Excellence website
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