FORT GREELY, Alaska -- For Soldiers here, quality training makes perfect and they demonstrated that perfection during their recent exercise here April 19-26.
For the second time in as many months, Soldiers of Alpha Company, Military Police, 49th Missile Defense Battalion and their headquarters, geared up for a major exercise. This time they were evaluated by the 100th Missile Defense Brigade (Ground-based Midcourse Defense) during Guardian Strike/Global Lightening 2016.
To better assess individual, team and squad proficiency prior to the battalion-level assessment, the 100th Missile Defense Brigade split the exercise into two distinct phases. The first phase, designated Guardian Strike, consisted of a four-day military police training evaluation held at Fort Wainwright's Combined Arms Collective Training Facility, or CACTF, a mock town near Fort Greely. There, A Company MPs performed and were evaluated on individual Soldier and collective tasks including less than lethal tactics, casualty care and evacuation, escalation of force, and doctrinal Rules of Use of Force under the supervision of the brigade.
During this same time period brigade personnel also began a series of lower-level assessments on the battalion and A Company at Fort Greely's Missile Defense Complex before the initiation of the second phase of the exercise, U.S. Strategic Command's Tier-1 level exercise Global Lightning.
Understanding the complexity and scale necessary to execute simultaneous assessments during both phases, the brigade leveraged expertise and support from Soldiers of the Colorado Army National Guard's Centennial Training Center with additional evaluation and "role player" support from COARNG's 193rd Military Police Battalion, Alaska Army National Guard's 297th Military Police Battalion, and the U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command's staff judge advocate office.
"Being able to experience the scenarios from the opponent's perspective taught me about the varying situations that we as MPs are placed in," said Spc. Caleb Schneck, 297th Military Police Battalion Alaska National Guard. "I learned a good deal of the importance of communication and preparation, as well as the importance of keeping up-to-date with common MP skills such as handcuffing, searching and understanding the rules of engagement."
In all, some 35 Soldiers and contractor support personnel from Alaska and Colorado proved vital in the execution of the exercise. The training not only offered the MPs from Fort Greeley a chance to sharpen their skills and learn from other MPs, but it allowed them to meet other MPs from the two states and share their thoughts and ideas about different tactics, techniques, and procedures.
"I learned several techniques for enhancing my own unit's training and many of A Company's processes for conducting battle drills internally will be reviewed here in my own unit," said Sgt. 1st Class Bradley Tune, Opposing Forces noncommissioned officer in charge, 220th Military Police Company, 193rd Military Police Battalion, Colorado National Guard. "Their unique mission set of law enforcement and combat support at the same time fits well with what we try to do at the 220th."
The exercise shifted from Guardian Strike's focus primarily on doctrinal individual and collective MP tasks to that of A Company and the 49th Missile Defense Battalion's mission essential task of Ballistic Missile Defense -- Critical Site Security at Fort Greely's MDC.
This phase saw a continuation of many of the tasks from Guardian Strike, but added additional elements of mission command, validation of tactical standard operating procedures, battle drills, headquarters battery support tasks, hybrid threats that reinforced their Rules of Use of Force, and evaluation of battalion staff and operation centers. Not only did these additional elements play a role in the Global Lightning phase, the (simulated) threats the battalion faced became more complex in an operational environment with a dynamic and hybrid threat.
"This year's exercise was more goal oriented toward our own battle drills as military police." said Sgt. Jarrod Kelderman of A Company. "The Colorado and Alaska Military Police that came with the 100th Missile Defense Brigade brought knowledge and insight into our MOS in real-world situations and gave us a better experience dealing with the threats we actually face as MPs."
Although the exercise provided valuable additional training to the battalion, at its core the exercise was in fact an operational readiness assessment under the Army's new Sustainable Readiness Model (SRM) "Objective-T." Unlike the previous three-phase Army Force Generation readiness model, SRM more closely emulates the brigade and battalion's mission and provides the brigade with demanding, multi-echelon home-station collective training and assessment.
With Objective-T as the baseline for the battalion's Guardian Strike/Global Lightning assessment, the brigade was able to move toward a methodology of mission essential task assessment linked to measurable standards, influenced by execution of key supporting tasks. In doing so, observer controller trainers were able to provide the battalion leadership with more than 800 annotated assessments for individual and collective tasks based on scenarios customized for their real-world operations ranging from simple and static through complex and dynamic. These documents provide brigade and battalion leadership a picture of unit readiness that blends the art of command with the scientific metrics to assess their ability to execute their mission essential tasks.
Related Links:
100th Missile Defense Brigade Facebook page
Social Sharing