MUTC Training Relies on Working Together

Photo By Cpl. Alex Guerra | A Marine with the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit secures the perimeter while his comrades interact with "locals" during Realistic Urban Training at Muscatatuck Urban Training Center, Sept. 28.  

BUTLERVILLE, UNITED STATES

10.07.2009

Story by Sgt. Brad Staggs 

Indiana National Guard Headquarters

BUTLERVILLE, Ind.- Muscatatuck Urban Training Center encompasses only 1,000 total acres, including a 180-acre reservoir. This translates to just over 1.5 square miles of land and water for military units to train on. As you can imagine, space can get tight very quickly.

Part of the mission of MUTC is to "provide the most realistic, contemporary operating environment possible in which to mobilize and train the joint, interagency, inter-government, multi-national, non-governmental team to accomplish missions directed toward protecting the homeland and defending the peace." This means that we need to train everybody to work together.

Recently, more than 500 Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit found themselves sharing space with civilians from the U.S. State Department's Provincial Reconstruction Team, creating a training opportunity neither expected until they got together.

The PRT training focuses on teaching civilian employees from the U.S. State Department, Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Agency for International Development how to live and work in Afghanistan. They spend four weeks training for their Afghanistan assignments with the final week of the training taking place at Muscatatuck.

While in Afghanistan, the civilians will interact with all branches of the military in order to accomplish their mission. During the class in October, they not only interacted with the Army, but with the Marines as well.

Jim McKellar of the McKellar Group and project manager for the PRT training thinks that integrating everybody on-site into the training really helps all those who will be working together in Afghanistan.

"I think it's easy to integrate the military units here because they're focused on the same mission, that being successful in Afghanistan," McKellar said. "Therefore, it's very easy to integrate the civilians into the military staffs since they're focused on the same mission that the president laid out for us."

Marines from the 24th MEU provided realistic scenarios for the PRT training, guarding the mock embassy that the civilians had to enter and roadways they had to traverse. The PRT members were also able to sit in on Marine briefings and see first-hand how what they do affects the Marines in country.

Elizabeth Rood, director of the Stability Operations Division for the U.S. State Department's Foreign Service Institute, saw a lot of value in the inter-agency training, even at times when it wasn't as coordinated as everybody thought.

"There were some cases that the Marines were in a facility that we were intending to use," Rood said. "The PRT or another civilian group might be going out to meet people and discover that there is a maneuver unit already doing something there that wasn't a planned encounter. So it's not a bad thing that these movements are going on simultaneously."

Purdue and Indiana Universities also take part in the PRT training, providing important information on local Afghani farming techniques and training the inter-agency civilians on what to expect once they arrive in country.

Working together in a small space is one of the hallmarks of urban training and Muscatatuck helps military and civilian entities work together to achieve a common goal.

• Date Taken: 10.07.2009
• Date Posted: 10.07.2009 13:03
• Story ID: 39781
• Location: BUTLERVILLE, US