Photo By Staff Sgt. Daniel Schroeder | Pfc. Jeffrey Whitcomb, a human intelligence collector assigned to Company A, 109th...... read more read more
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JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, Wash. – More than 80 Soldiers from the 201st Expeditionary Military Intelligence Brigade completed the first military intelligence team certification exercise Nov. 6 at Joint Base Lewis-McChord, Washington.
The exercise provided a systematic way to build intelligence Soldiers’ proficiency while conducting the warfighting mission within a variety of environments.
“This is the first opportunity for us to certify [military intelligence] teams which then provides me an accurate picture across the battalions of the number of teams ready to deploy,” said Col. Constantin Nicolet, 201st EMIB Commander. “The tasks are what we employ in a combat environment where we send teams to maneuver with brigades, and this level of training certifies them in their technical skills before incorporating into a Stryker brigade.”
Eighteen teams comprised of Soldiers from JBLM, Alaska and Hawaii received the same certification focusing on military source operations, interrogations, debriefing and sensitive site exploitation.
The exercise created a common training standard for each of the military intelligence teams, certifying Soldiers to integrate into deploying combat brigades.
“This training focused more on the intelligence aspect, where in other training we provide more support to line units accomplishing basic tasks than our jobs,” said Spc. Terry Marshall, a human intelligence collector assigned to 109th Military Intelligence Battalion, 201st EMIB. “I feel more proficient in my job after this training. You can always improve on anything you do.”
The scenario was created as a standard baseline for every team and not simultaneous with other scenarios. Each Soldier was given the same level of information and every participant was scored the same.
The Soldiers navigated through various areas of counter, human and signal intelligence tasks which are key to support combat units while deployed.
“It helps show how each team and person works given the same information training each to the same standard,” said Capt. Bryan Nesbitt, training and exercise operations officer, 201st EMIB. “There is no pass or fail grading. It’s all based on the score of how each Soldier performs each task.”
One of the scenarios required the teams to enter a simulated secure town, investigate the site, question the pretend villagers and obtain biometrics, which included fingerprints and photos of the individuals.
“It’s a type of training that needs to happen, that will absolutely ensure mission success when they deploy,” said Nesbitt. “The lessons learned during the exercise will help improve the next certification table. At this time, each scenario given is not linked to another team’s scenario, but information is similar, creating the most realistic environment as possible.”
The successful completion of the first table VI military intelligence gunnery opened the potential to implement the exercise Army-wide.
“[United States Army Forces Command] is making a push along with the [U.S. Army Intelligence Center of Excellence] to codify MI gunnery,” said Nicolet. “We are the first one to run the training which will help how FORSCOM will implement this Army-wide. I am very pleased with the training, and we will use the lessons learned to improve the training as we move forward.”
| Date Taken: | 11.06.2015 |
| Date Posted: | 11.09.2015 16:40 |
| Story ID: | 181482 |
| Location: | JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASHINGTON, US |
| Web Views: | 254 |
| Downloads: | 1 |
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