Photo By Sgt. 1st Class Shane Klestinski | Army Capt. Rafael Vega (far right, seated), operations officer, announces “attention...... read more read more
Officers and noncommissioned officers assigned to the Florida Army National Guard’s 254th Transportation Battalion gathered for a staff exercise in a tactical operations center (TOC) at Camp Blanding during their June 2023 annual training.
To the uninitiated, these events involving Army leaders discussing various scenarios in a room may seem more like a role-playing game, but they serve an important function in developing leaders knowledgeable of the military decision-making process (MDMP) and identifying weak points in a unit’s mission readiness.
New information, or “injects,” require decision-makers to respond to sudden developments that complicate a situation, which often results in adjusting plans to accomplish missions and satisfy a commander’s intent. TOCs can be high-pressure environments in which decision-makers train, which is largely the point. The officers and NCOs who practice under such situations may have to perform in similar, stressful circumstances in the real world. Even if Florida Guard Soldiers have not yet served in a combat theater, the Sunshine State is always – at most – just six months away from the next hurricane season, so they need to be prepared for the pressure that can accompany any activation.
“This is by far the best way to train,” said Army Capt. Rafael Vega, who acted as both the intelligence and operations officers during the exercise. “In dealing with unexpected scenarios, it’s all about being organized and maintaining time management – but at the same time, implementing everything we’ve learned as well as the MDMP. Whatever mission comes up in the next year, we know that we can apply what we’ve learned to real-world settings because we’ve had the repetitions.”
Vega said the 254th’s notional task involved supporting brigade combat teams in the 4th and 10th Infantry Divisions. Soldiers in the TOC had to examine the mission analysis, support whatever efforts they could, and request additional assets to ensure their mission was successful in the Lithuania and Latvia area of operations (AO).
Unlike other simulations, the 254th Transportation Battalion’s training AO took place in real-world locations instead of “Atropia,” a fictitious country that has often been the setting for military training scenarios.
“We’re here to do real-world training instead of the usual ‘Atropia’ missions, so we’re assisting with setting up different locations… and getting commodities sent from one location to the next to fight the fight,” said Army Staff Sgt. Nicole Leuthold, movements supervisor. “This is a fictious scenario that could actually happen to give us a better understanding of what the battalion, and us as individual Soldiers, need to improve so that when we do get called up, we’re ready.”
Although the psychological payoff from a successful training mission is always preferable for the staff officers and NCOs who train in a TOC using the MDMP, that outcome isn’t always possible, no matter how hard they strive for mission accomplishment. There are times when Soldiers have to be satisfied with lessons learned.
“In building our readiness and being prepared, [exercises like these] are necessary because you don’t know where your shortfalls are until you’re pushed to that limit,” Leuthold said. “You have to get pushed, and you have to fail, because if you don’t, you won’t know how to achieve the battalion commander’s goals, or your personal goals. These exercises can be stressful, but they’re needed.”
Leuthold said one of the purposes of the exercise was to gain an accurate understanding of what the battalion can support on a mission – and what it can’t. “Success” in training sometimes takes the form of a failure that helps leaders identify a problem before it jeopardizes a real-world mission because it went undetected and unresolved.
“[Such an outcome] gives a commander guidance to self-diagnose where we need to improve to build a better training plan as a battalion, battalion staff, and within our sections, to learn where the weakest link is, and how we can improve on that,” Leuthold said. “There’s always room for improvement.”
In identifying those areas for improvement, unit and individual readiness can increase through improved training that makes for quality repetition and greater confidence gained through familiarity with the process and the operational environment.
“The more we get exposed to the MDMP through training scenarios, [we can better address the concerns of] how to respond, how to adjust, and more importantly, how to get your organization, unit or section, to understand the same concept that you understand,” Vega said. “It’s not just receiving information, it’s being able to distribute information that’s pertinent to your unit and your sections for them to be successful.”
Headquartered in West Palm Beach, Florida, the 254th Transportation Battalion is a subordinate unit within the 50th Regional Support Group.
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| Date Taken: | 06.14.2023 |
| Date Posted: | 06.19.2023 10:01 |
| Story ID: | 447407 |
| Location: | CAMP BLANDING, FLORIDA, US |
| Web Views: | 386 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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