Huntsville's Public Safety Building was the site of Thursday morning's training for 16 Soldiers.
They're students in the Intermediate Level Education class of the Command and General Staff School. They represent one of four 16-student groups in the 64-member class that lasts 15 weeks.
Defense Support to Civil Authorities was the block of instruction that led to Thursday's training downtown at 815 Wheeler Ave. The students received an overview of the Huntsville Police Department from its communications relations officer, Dr. Harry Hobbs, a retired chief warrant officer 5. For the remainder of their morning at the building, the students shared their experiences in the field.
"These guys are going to learn from their peers' experiences," the instructor, retired Lt. Col. Dave Palmer, an assistant professor at CGSS, said. "Every single one of these guys has a combat badge on so every single one of them has been in combat (in Afghanistan, Iraq or both)."
The students are field grade officers, majors, from throughout the world representing a full range of military occupational specialties. Some of these included nurses, chaplains, combat arms, acquisition corps, armor, explosive ordnance disposal, and one military policeman. One of the 16 students was female; and normally there are about three females per 16, according to Palmer. "We have 64 students every 15 weeks," he said.
Intermediate Level Education represents master's level foundation courses that are required for every field grade officer in the Army.
"We're brought together for a common core of training," Maj. Bryan Ash, a student in this class which graduates Aug. 17, said. "Our class is now the largest group of Soldiers in a training environment on Redstone."
Hobbs told the students about the organization of the police department and his role with the community and news media.
"We work very closely with our community here, we're really excited about that," Hobbs said. "Nine times out of 10 it's the community that helps us solve crimes along with our great investigators."
Huntsville police Capt. Vince Dauro, technical services division commander and accreditation manager, described how the department interacts with other agencies. "We have a lot of leeway with military because we've been a military town for so long," Dauro said.
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