TRAINING DIVISION (IET) From the COMMANDING GENERAL GREETINGS TO ALL OF MY TEAMMATES IN THE 108TH, 95TH, 98TH AND 104TH!

One of the 98th Training Division’s focus areas is building the Warrior Ethos at all echelons. While training divisions generally don’t deploy, building Warrior Ethos with all echelons and ranks builds readiness. As a Military Police Brigade Commander, I mobilized all my from Training Divisions. Some of our cross-leveled Soldiers had a very short time to get ready with very little AWT type training done. This taught me an important lesson: you never know when you will be the individual “plucked” for a deployment with a different organization that had significantly more time to get ready. I also recognize that the 98th Division build Warrior skills, I directed all of my units to conduct at least one task per Battle Assembly weekend that includes one of the following: Shoot, Move, Communicate, Medicate, Decontaminate or Sustain. This applies to Soldiers of all ranks, myself included.

Some ideas I have shared with brigades: battalions and over 2,000 Soldiers during my three-year tenure. The demand for deploying Soldiers always outstripped the supply, forcing a search across USARC to find individuals with needed skills from other units, to include Soldiers mobilized to conduct an MTT mission in Iraq in 2004. We must be ready as individuals and a unit for any potential mission the Army may have for us.

Shoot: Conduct weapons PMCS, PMI, EST, qualify with individual weapon, borrow crew served weapons and familiarize, learn how to do a range card, etc.

Move: Mounted and dismounted movement to include driver’s training, borrow tactical vehicles and do a tactical road march. Conduct dismounted movement to contact, actions on contact, hand and arm signals, etc.

Decontaminate: Train in MOPP 1-4, PMCS masks, check fit with PATs system. Train on personal and equipment decontamination, what to do when a victim of nerve agent, etc.

Sustain: Borrow a GP medium and set it up at your Reserve Center, get MREs and do a field feeding with dispersal, explain field sanitation standards, noise and light discipline, 360 security, etc.

One of our lines of effort seeks to mitigate this challenge. To help

Communicate: Set up a SINCGARS radio and do 9-line MEDEVAC calls, set up antennas, radio etiquette, etc.

Medicate: Put on a tourniquet, treat a burn, treat a heat casualty; there are so many perishable skills here to choose from.

This is by no means and exhaustive list, just some food for thought. I always think about senior leaders discussing that there are no safe areas in war anymore. Terrorists have hit us right in on our own turf to include Army installations. We see aggression by state actors almost daily on the news as well. I see improving Warrior skills as a crucial skill set and place a great degree of urgency upon it.