FORT DRUM, N.Y. -- Spartan Soldiers in 3rd Brigade Combat Team took the opportunity to share knowledge they gained during their recent deployment to Afghanistan with Commandos in 2nd Brigade Combat Team during the two-week-long, divisionwide Mountain Peak training exercise.
After spending a year in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan, Spartans know what to expect from the fight in the birthplace of the Taliban. During Mountain Peak, Spartan Soldiers played a variety of roles, working hard to run weapons ranges, mentor 2nd BCT Soldiers in their specific skill sets, and play realistic roles to aid training at the ranges.
Soldiers served as observers and trainers for the platoon and company live-fire exercises, air assaults and force-on-force missions and provided immediate feedback for the Commandos. As observer-controllers, the Spartans also went through the training exercises and ranges and stayed in the field with their 2nd BCT counterparts. The benefit of having Spartans shadow the Soldiers brought immediate feedback on their performance, and the Commandos had a chance to instantly correct any deficiencies at the range, or with their specific jobs.
Deploying Soldiers often will focus solely on the combat aspect of a fight, but the training often needs to be more in-depth than that. By assuming several roles in the training, Spartan Soldiers were able to give 2nd BCT Soldiers a chance to interact with civilians role-playing as Afghan civilians and other personalities that a unit will encounter in Afghanistan.
It is imperative for Soldiers to train for the multifaceted operations they will encounter while deployed. Spartans worked hard to provide a multidimensional training experience for the Commandos.
"It was probably some of the most real-life training that anyone is going to see here in the near future, outside of combat itself," said Capt. Jason Smith, commander of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team. "It is the most realistic combat scenario or situation that we have put ourselves in. I feel that this is definitely going to prepare us for combat."
While the Spartan Brigade has been home only since March, Soldiers were happy to participate in Mountain Peak and assist their 10th Mountain Division (LI) comrades with recent, real-life experience.
"We just got back (from Afghanistan), so we are pretty familiar with everything," said Sgt. Brian Shapiro, a team leader in A Company, 3rd Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 3rd Brigade Combat Team. "We're trying to train up these guys and hopefully guide them in the right direction."
The Spartans helped to create the most up-to-date training exercises for Mountain Peak participants based off their firsthand experiences. Everything from the weapons ranges to the role players was as realistic as Soldiers could possibly make them.
"There are a lot of experiences we have to share," said 1st Lt. Adam Fugent, executive officer of C Company, 2nd Battalion, 87th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, who served as an observer-controller on a company live-fire range.
In further preparation for possible future overseas deployment, 2nd BCT Soldiers will deploy to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., in the fall. NTC is an Armywide training facility designed to prepare Soldiers for deployment.
"They have been training really hard now for a long time in 2nd Brigade, getting ready to go to NTC," Fugent said. "Before 2nd Brigade goes and does their NTC mission, we are able to give them some of the lessons learned that we have."
At the National Training Center, 2nd BCT Soldiers will continue to train and prepare for possible deployment, and although the Commando Brigade has never de- ployed to Afghanistan as a unit, they are taking every step within their power to prepare for the fight ahead of them.
(Stewart served as a civilian journalist role-player during Mountain Peak, "embedded" with elements of 2nd Battalion, 14th Infantry Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team the duration of the exercise.)
Social Sharing