OCTs: The eyes and ears of multinational training

HOHENFELS, Germany -- A military convoy rumbles along a gravel road amidst steep hills covered with conifers and sprinkled with deciduous trees. The vehicles' occupants grip weapons of various calibers while carefully scanning their surroundings for any movement, anything out of place. Soon, an explosion signifies that they've rolled into a mine field. The driver in the lead vehicle dies in the explosion. With his last breaths, the convoy commander in the passenger seat relays next steps to his team over the radio.

Medics rush to the vehicle, too late to save the commander, but render aid to the gunner, who climbed out to pull security despite minor injuries. The other vehicles stop behind him, with Soldiers returning fire at unseen enemy forces in the trees.

The sights, sounds and smells of the incident feel real. But it's not.

SIMULATING REAL ATTACKS

Everything that has and continues to take place on this stretch of road here at the Joint Multinational Readiness remains focused on simulating the most realistic battlefield experience for 4,700 military members from 17 countries. It's all part of the month-long Saber Junction 15 exercise that strives to enhance offensive, defensive and stability operations while promoting interoperability amongst NATO allies.

As part of Phase 3 of the five-phase exercise, forces spend eight days conducting situational training events. It's a chance to act as if they are in combat, but with the safety net of blank rounds, fake munitions and simulated chemical attacks while operating under the watchful eyes of 15 teams of observers-coaches-trainers, or OCTs.

While Saber Junction takes a massive effort to coordinate and execute, it's the OCTs who are the hands-on, eyes-on managers of the simulated battles. They conceptualize the training lanes, set them up, and then observe, note and record what happens as teams of Soldiers from the U.S. Army's 2nd Cavalry Regiment roll through. After each segment of each training lane, the OCTs lead an after-action review, discussing what happened, what went well, and what they could do better next time.

"It's good to make mistakes and learn from them," said Sgt. 1st Class Jose Garcia, an OCT, to a group of Soldiers from the regiment's Reconnaissance Support Squadron following a training lane. "It'll make you better because sometimes in combat you can't recover from your mistakes."

It's a time to rehearse, learn and rehearse again while the enemy "is just shooting lasers at you," said Sgt. 1st Class Jason Crawford, another OCT on the Adler Team.

LEARNING NEW LESSONS

The Soldiers, many of whom have never deployed to a combat zone, appreciate the opportunity.

"It felt real," said Pfc. Yasmine Barlett, a gunner on the lead truck during one exercise.

In her 21 months in the Army, the young Soldier had never fired a .50-caliber machine gun before. After struggling to load the weapon for the first time, she got in her groove and started returning fire at enemy forces from behind the turret of the Humvee.

"It was definitely an experience," she said with a grin, a buzz of excitement in her voice. "I'd never fired a .50-cal before, so firing today was very exciting. It made me feel like I was doing something, so it was definitely a good test."

Loading the large weapon wasn't the only lesson she learned from the scenario.

"You've got to be fast, especially with the gas mask, because I died," she said of her response time to a simulated chemical attack. "So, I've got to be faster and know where all my equipment is at all times, and pay attention to surroundings. We did pretty good at communicating, but we can always get better."

Others expressed similar lessons learned.

"It was very challenging … to don our mask and continue the fire fight," said Spc. Tavis Holliman-Proctor, with the Reconnaissance Support Squadron, 2nd Cavalry Regiment. He served on a gun truck during the scenario where the driver and commander in his vehicle were killed in an attack.

"I'm learning about what I need to do when situations come up," he said. "You know, I'm a gunner, and my TC (truck commander) goes down, my driver goes down, I need to know what to do to react. I would have to take their spot and position if they go down, so I need to learn their job, and they need to learn my job in case I go down."

IMPROVING TRAINING EXPERIENCES

Those lessons come from experience, both of the Soldiers in the scenarios but, primarily, from the OCTs, who pride themselves on preparing Soldiers for anything they might face outside of the 163-square-kilometer training area in southeastern Germany.

"Compared to other trainings in the past, this wasn't like random stuff going on in the battlefield," Holliman-Proctor said. "With past trainings, they would tell us what's going on, but this time we didn't know what was going on so we had to be resilient and react as we would … (in the) real world."

That experience comes courtesy of the professional OCTs.

Beyond setting up and executing the lanes, they take time to "talk through all of the actions on the objective, talk through their medical procedures, their clearing procedures and then also, as far as their recovery assets, how they could recover from that area … (and avoid) pulling their entire asset into the danger zone," Crawford said.

They work to ensure Soldiers at every level, from the newest private to the most experienced leader, understand what happened and how to improve.

"Once you commit to a decision, you commit to it," Garcia stressed during one after-action review before turning to the platoon's leadership. "Convoy commander: Sometimes you have seconds to react, but when you make a decision, you stick to it."

These lessons are better learned on a gravel road in Germany than during a potentially dangerous mission down the road.

"Hopefully they took away from this that before they push forward or engage that they are capable of clearing (the area) and holding security, … not leading themselves into any more danger areas," Crawford said.

It's about learning how their teams work together, too, since active-duty Soldiers rarely stay at a duty station longer than three years before moving on, resulting in a great amount of fluidity in any unit.

"We don't know how each other would act in a combat situation, so this was like a simulation thing so we all know what we can do and how we'll react … for the future if something serious goes down," Holliman-Proctor said.

SAVING LIVES

That's what the OCTs hope more than anything: to teach lessons and save lives. It's what keeps them going through long hours and changing weather conditions.

"I enjoy this job every day," Crawford said.

What makes it fun? "Training the Soldiers and being able to share this down to the lowest level. Trying to pull the answers out of the privates that we have here," Crawford said. "It's the step up along the way of their career."

It's a lesson the young Soldiers will remember.

"It's actually real," Barlett said. "You want to participate and get some good training out of that. You actually get to feel how it would really feel if you were deployed in a combat area."

The reality of that training will step up a few notches this week as the 2nd Cavalry Regiment Soldiers shift to a full force-on-force exercise where the situation evolves with diverse battlefield challenges across villages and remote areas within the JMRC.

Related Links:

2nd Cavalry Regiment

U.S. Army Europe

Observer Coach Trainers (OCTs)

Joint Multinational Training Command

Saber Junction