Photo By Brad Staggs | A Soldier with the Illinois National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry Regiment...... read more read more
BUTLERVILLE, Ind. — It may seem unusual for Illinois National Guardsmen to be training at an urban training facility in Indiana, but when the site is as special as Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, the realism makes the trip worthwhile.
The Illinois National Guard’s 2nd Battalion, 130th Infantry Regiment is using the facility to conduct team level exercises, teaching the younger Soldiers how to move through and clear buildings while enhancing the capabilities of the more experienced Soldiers.
“We are moving to a culminating event,” explained 1st Lt. Julian Meduga, Platoon Leader for C Company. “We’re going to put a squad through the buildings and test their proficiency at that level.”
Platoon sergeants who have experience take the time to train their Soldiers on small unit tactics, holding after action reviews to walk them step-by-step through what they did, right and wrong.
Beginning in a “crawl” phase, the Soldiers trudge slowly through what they are supposed to do, learning several different methods, until it becomes second nature. The Soldiers learn how to stack behind each other along a wall to present the smallest possible target to the enemy, how to avoid presenting a target in a window, and how to traverse enemy territory across open ground among other skills.
They will then graduate to a “walk” phase in which the Soldiers do more on their own without having to be stopped, picking the speed up just a bit as the training becomes easier without having to think to react.
Finally, the “run” phase. Soldiers are able to perform all required tasks at full speed, as if it were a real-life situation. There should be an almost unspoken unity in the squad that allows each Soldier to know exactly what the other is going to do in any given situation.
Meduga is optimistic yet realistic about their progress, “they’ve moved past a certain level in regard to team exercises and they’re very well trained. We have a lot of new, inexperienced team leaders and my hope is that they learn something they can take back to the company with them.”
While the unit is always training, Meduga says that the experience at Muscatatuck brought their training up a notch. “There’s lots of different scenarios, so you can incorporate any kind of training you can think of. The Joes think it’s a really interactive environment.”
| Date Taken: | 06.15.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 06.22.2015 16:55 |
| Story ID: | 167688 |
| Location: | BUTLERVILLE, INDIANA, US |
| Web Views: | 50 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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