FORT SILL, Okla. -- Four trainers from the Fires Center of Excellence Noncommissioned Officers Academy took their expertise to the road when they taught the Advanced Leaders Course to 39 air defense artillery students at Fort Bragg, N.C., from Jan. 7 through Feb. 18.
It was the first time Fort Sill sent an ADA mobile training team, or MTT, to teach the course since the branch arrived here, said an NCOA official.
"It's cheaper for the Army to send four of us to Fort Bragg to train their 39 students versus sending all 39 to Fort Sill for the resident course," said Sgt. 1st Class Spencer Knight, ADA ALC senior small group leader. "We set up shop there as close as possible to the resident course and facilitated their instruction."
The six-week ALC course was for E-5 and E-6 air defenders in all four ADA military occupational specialties. It prepared them for their roles as air defense staff sergeants, according to the training operations order. The students were assigned to the 108th ADA Brigade, and 18th Airborne Corps.
The course covered ADA tactics, and strategic and organizational level thinking for NCOs, said Staff Sgt. John Hickman, small group leader.
The students recently returned from deployment, and the instruction gets them back into leading in a garrison environment, added Staff Sgt. Derrick Lee, small group leader. Students were assigned various leadership roles ranging from squad leader to first sergeant and evaluated on their performance in those positions.
The students were divided into three platoons in an even mix of ranks, MOSs and sex to ensure "a good melting pot of NCOs and experience," Knight said.
Day 1 of training gave the students an overview of what was expected of them.
"We provide them with details on how to achieve a superior rating on their evaluations, we covered (research) paper writing techniques and demonstrations in the new physical readiness training," said Staff Sgt. Nicholas Martinelli, small group leader. "We also conducted height and weight analysis and assigned student leadership roles."
Each day began at 5:30 a.m. with the Army's new physical readiness training, or PRT.
"A lot of units are just starting to make the transition to PRT, so many of the noncommissioned officers we get have little to no experience with that," Martinelli said. "We used the crawl, walk, run phases to explain it in depth."
During the next six weeks, students had to write two 1,000-word papers and an operations order. One writing assignment required students to work in groups of three to write about a unit's history.
"It has to have cited works and be written in an MLA (Modern Language Association) format," Hickman said.
The other paper required each student to write about the various cultural aspects of a foreign country of their choice.
"It's a comprehensive analysis of the country's culture," Lee said, "populations, religions, foods."
Cultural awareness is emphasized throughout the duration of ALC, Knight said.
"We talk about the contemporary operating environment with every class," he said.
The students also write Annex E -- the ADA mission planning of a military operation.
"It is a very large task, which forces them to network with their peers, research because they are writing about roles they are not familiar with," said Martinelli. "We do that to make them aware of what other people in the branch do."
Lee said Annex E makes the students apply everything that they have learned in the academics of ALC.
Of course, the Soldiers performed warrior tasks, including land navigation, a day-and-a-half of counter-IED training and a situational training exercise where they assumed leadership roles in a military mission.
The students also worked in virtual-based training -- taking the role of air warriors, who are required to making tactical decisions and seeing the results of those decisions.
One of the unique things about ALC is that it is branch specific and not MOS specific, Knight said.
Avenger missile sergeants can share their experience with Patriot missile sergeants and vice versa.
"This really is the first exposure that they get to the branch as a whole," he said.
What little free time the small group leaders had was usually spent preparing for the next day's training, Knight said.
The small group leaders spent an entire weekend preparing a land navigation course, Knight said. Another weekend was spent updating the Annex E lesson plan, making it more relevant to the current operating environment.
Knight said the team's training was successful because of the support of the host unit -- the 108th.
"The brigade command team emphasized whatever we needed for the training, we got, and that helped us to be successful ... to make sure there was no degradation of the program instruction from the resident course to the MTT."
Command Sgt. Maj. Dean Keveles, NCOA commandant, received feedback from Fort Bragg about the MTT's performance.
"They did awesome, they did a great job," Keveles said. "Everybody was professional."
Comments from the course evaluation indicated that students liked that the MTT came to their unit, Knight said.
"They liked the fact that they got to go home every night," he said. "Ordinarily, Soldiers who deploy and are away from their families for one year, come back and do (resident) ALC and are gone for another six weeks."
Another student commented that everyday the small group leaders were prepared, feeding the students with new information, tools and techniques -- that either he did not know or had forgotten, Lee said.
When he shakes his students' hands on graduation day, Lee said he reminds them to keep in contact with each other.
"You may have some something this staff sergeant doesn't have, but if you have communications with him it is very beneficial, a lot of information will get passed," Lee said.
Hickman said he wanted his students to put their new skills to work at their units.
"Whatever nuggets of information they learned in the classroom, I'd like them to spread like wildfire to their Soldiers," he said.
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