Train As You Operate
UE 07-1 MISSION REHEARSAL EXERCISE PREPARED FORCES FOR THE RIGORS OF INTEGRATED OPERATIONS IN OPERATION ENDURING FREEDOM.
This past year’s Unified Effort (UE) 07-1 Mission Rehearsal Exercise (MRX) prepared the 82nd Airborne Division to assume the mantles of leadership in early 2007 as Combined Joint Task Force (CJTF)-76 (in Afghanistan) and as Regional Commander East, under the command and control of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
The exercise’s training objectives allowed the U.S. training audience in seven states to focus on the CJTF’s leading mission requirements. Four of CJTF-76’s current missions include working with the Afghanistan military, defeating terrorists and criminal organizations, providing humanitarian assistance and assisting with reconstruction activities.
UE07-1 was a robust training exercise “that really reflected the real-world requirements for Operation Enduring Freedom and the asymmetric conditions that theater provides,” reflected Dr. Paul Mayberry, deputy undersecretary of defense for readiness.
WHAT’S DIFFERENT?
This MRX further highlighted the ability of the Department of Defense’s Training Transformation program and its Joint National Training Capability (JNTC) to support the joint warfighter.
The sponsors of the initial four JNTC events conducted in 2004 declared victory, in part, from their ability to insert jointness into a service exercise. Joint warfighting in the embryonic stages of JNTC was primarily viewed through the lens of the services’ participation. What a difference almost three years makes.
While the UE07-1 scenario inserted joint missions into this service event, it enabled the division to prepare for its deployment in an integrated context—not only with the other services, but with interagency, nongovernmental and multinational partners.
This eclectic mix of training participants helped create the complexities and realism of current operations in Afghanistan for this MRX’s training audience.
One event entity of interest was the control group Interagency Cell. The cell included representatives from the U.S. Department of State, Defense Intelligence Agency and other U.S. government organizations, along with individuals from United Nations, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other agencies.
Coalition partners had further visibility in the MRX from the more than 65 ISAF officers who represented all staff functions and were assigned to the Joint Control Group.
Several of the other training partners included Afghan nationals who served as role players for that nation’s army, national police and other government groups, reported Major General Jason Kamiya, commander Joint Warfighting Center and director, Joint Training, U.S. Joint Forces Command.
The general and his staff have day-to-day management responsibilities of JNTC.
MG Kamiya, who speaks from his experience as a CJTF-76 commander who was in theater until February 2006, reflected that these training partners help the prospective deploying units better understand when a non-military response will be most effective.
You get at some of the in-theater problems “via engagement with the Afghan governors and other government leaders and the tribal elders, and working with the U.S. embassy and ISAF headquarters,” he remarked.
INSIGHT ON IN-THEATER CHALLENGES
Provisional reconstruction teams (PRTs) were one notable, in-theater capability about which the 82nd gained insight.
The teams are joint civil-military units deployed throughout most of Afghanistan. Their goal is to strengthen the reach and enhance the legitimacy of the central government in outlying regions through improved security, and the facilitation of reconstruction and development efforts, stated a U.S. Agency for International Development information sheet.
The inclusion in the UE07-1 scenario of PRTs and other operational aspects of missions in Afghanistan bolstered Dr. Mayberry’s follow-on assertion that T2 and JNTC are migrating from their earlier goal of helping service men and women “train as you fight” to a new standard: “train as you operate.”
MOVING ELECTRONS WHEN POSSIBLE
In an effort to further transform DoD training, JNTC events also move electrons and not people, when possible, to complete unit and staff training. The capability achieves this outcome primarily through the evolving Joint National Training Capability Joint Training and Experimentation Network (JTEN).
The network connects 33 sites around the world and allows training audiences to more fully train in a live, virtual and constructive environment from where they live and work.
UE07-1 distributed sites included Fort Bragg, N.C.; Joint Warfighting Center, Suffolk, Va.: Fort Leavenworth, Kan.; and Hurlburt Field, Fla.; and Davis Monthan AFB, Ariz. ♦