I took special note of comments from Army Staff Sergeant Brian Morton, an instructor at the UAS Training Battalion, Fort Huachuca, during a recent conference in Crystal City.
Morton noted that the majority of his service’s schoolhouse training – about 100 hours – is simulated, compared to 10 hours of actual flight training. During our discussion he also said, “We can make it [the simulated scenario] a very realistic flight,” and he spoke volumes about the utility of simulation as a building block for actual flight.
Technology is enabling the Army UAS training community and other servicemen and women to be mission ready to fight two wars—one of which is escalating. And therein resides a major challenge. The 30,000 (plus) troop buildup in Afghanistan has an approximate $30 billion price tag. Congressional staff members I spoke with during the holiday opined there will be two funding priorities for Afghanistan —operations and maintenance.
The four congressional defense committees would be well advised not to forget the invaluable contributions that training systems are making to training and operational readiness. Servicemembers are learning and in many cases rehearsing for missions 24/7. DoD’s efforts to move electrons and not troops, whenever feasible, provide cost savings and other benefits. The department’s training programs should not be considered a bill payer for new, wartime requirements in the FY2011 budget.
On the topic of Afghanistan, the buildup of U.S. troops is being matched with a similar in-country increase in other government agencies’ civilians. Training these U.S. resources for assignment requires hard work and innovation. Dr. Sam Kleinman, deputy under secretary of defense for readiness, and his staff share some insights on this challenge in this issue.
As always, I look forward to your comments.
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