COUNTERCOLUMN: All Your Bias Are Belong to Us

Had a MUTA 5 drill weekend, which means the unit comes in friday and stays through sunday. We went to the field for the first time in way too long, and the unit's rusty. We've had a lot of new people come in, some of them are in leadership positions, and load plans and equipment knowledge just gets rusty. As in, "Hey, sergeant... where's your radio?"

"Oh, we're supposed to have a RADIO?"

I happened to be carrying a radio list with me, so I was able to say, "Yep...and here's the serial number you're supposed to have!"

Not that I'm usually THAT organized. I usually go to the field carrying a pocket version of the primary field manual we're training out of, the collective task training and evaluation outlines (T&EOs) from the ARTEP training manual, a notebook, maybe a map or aerial photograph of the training area, my training schedule and operations order for the drill, and not much else.

A few thoughts on lessons learned on this exercise:

* Drivers' licensing is a constant, gargantuan struggle. Every soldier who gets behind the wheel needs to have almost a full day of instruction on the contents of AR 55-500. That's a day he's not available to do anything else. And that's before he even gets a check ride. In theory, we load as much of this training as possible into AMBER and RED training cycles. But with 10-20 new soldiers every drill, and the natural turnover of the unit, that's just no longer possible. In order to meet the regulation standard, we have to cut bone and muscle out of Green cycle field training to get drivers and vehicles on the road. Which itself is a violation of training doctrine. We're supposed to PROTECT Green Cycle training. But one cannot train convoy operations unless one has licensed drivers.

Then we've got to get every driver through an online defensive driving course. I can't sign off on a license til the soldier goes through the class and gets the certificate.

On active duty, that's no problem. You can send an entire platoon at a time down to the training lab or computer center or library and knock it out and it's done.

But we're a Guard unit. We don't have a base computer lab or computer training facility. We can't do it on drill time. So we have to get the soldier to do it at home on their own time. As if they will. The reality is between work and school commitments and family commitments, taking a three-four hour defensive driving course on their own time, uncompensated in any way, is really the last thing on their minds.

And I knew this would happen. It used to be only drivers under 26 had to take the class. Apparently, the number of accidents went down, because the Army expanded the requirement to the whole Army. (The possibility that the number of accidents went down because the requirement restrained units and forced them to put fewer drivers on the road - mostly over 26 and exempt from the requirement - does not seem to have registered).

What's more, now that distance learning is cheap and easy to do via the Internet, my soldiers are getting slammed with a new "bright idea" online course every few weeks, now. One or two, I don't mind. But when so many people at echelons above the troop level get a bright idea for a new course, the cumulative effect will cripple the units. Unless the requirements are properly resourced, it will soon a problem for the reserve component to execute.

"Stand down the whole unit for a day for safety training."
"Stand down the whole unit and focus recruiting and retentio

Then, in order to drive at night, every driver has to sit through an ADDITIONAL 5-8 hours of classroom training, specifically on driving with night vision goggles. This is a MAJOR drag on reserve component units, because training time is tough to come by as is. (8 hours always seemed crazy to me.)

Not only that, but I can't use the instructors I want to teach the class. Noooo...they have to be CERTIFIED NVG instructors. Which means they have to attend a two day class themselves a five hour drive away. And when one or two of them leave the unit, or get deployed, I'm dead in the water for months until I can get a NEW certified instructor through the course.

The stars are aligned now: I'm stopping collective task training long enough to knock out the classroom phase of training, because who knows when I'll get another chance with a certified instructor?

The danger is that the Army will cripple itself with regulations and requirements - especially in the reserve component. I could very easily fill up every drill weekend taking care of regulations and requirements and never leave the armory. And the unit will look good on paper, and be absolutely hopeless in the field.

That's not what I plan to do. Somewhere I need to balance the requirement. But when I have a training schedule that is supposed to be locked in 90 days out, and then I get a last minute requirement that X number of soldiers must have an online course I've never heard of on operational security completed within 12 days, using facilities I don't have, when we're supposed to go to the field anyway, then we're tying our own shoelaces together before running the race.

And then we wonder why people leave the Army. The answer is that the enemy on the battlefield has nothing to do with it. Al Qaeda and the moojies deserve recruiting and retention awards, because they're doing more than anyone to keep people in. The Army is its own worst enemy.

We need to remember what's important: Shooting, moving, communicating, supporting, planning and troop safety. Nothing else should be getting in our way. And "bright ideas" for additional requirements that don't facilitate those objectives ought to be squashed.

Splash, out

Jason