MiTT Training Week 3 - (Murphy Week)

I'm going to warn the reader up front. It was a very busy week for Team Griffin and "Murphy" was in full play this week. The training we received was excellent. The execution given the conditions was very good. The soldiers conducting the trainnig were first rate. The logistics and overall planning for this week was a total failure and did not meet acceptable standards.

Monday started in the nomal 1st Bn 16th Infantry way - a 0600 hrs formation. After formation we were all told to be in our designated spots no later than 08.00 hrs and that the buses would leave at 08.15 hrs with or without us on the bus. The bus would take us up the hill to main post for our individual "skill set" training (Medical, Commo, Blue Force Tracker, Logistics, etc).

At 08.00 hrs the troops formed up as required.
By 08.15 hrs... No Bus.
By 08.30 hrs... No Bus... and the Delta Company 1/16 INF Commander's and 1SG are scrambling to figure out what's going on.
By 08.45 hrs... D Co 1/16 INF ISG tells us there was a mix-up in the scheduling and that the buses are on their way (The bus parking lot is no more than 200 meters from our barracks).
08.55 hrs... buses start showing up.

Once we got on the bus. We found out that our bus driver didn't know where to drive us, except for somewhere up the hill. We gave him the Building number of the place we were supposed to go, based on what was on our training schedule (Building 77462). So, the bus driver takes us to building 77460. By this time it's 09.20 hrs. The trainers for the medics were wondering where we were, and met the bus and took the medical folks to their training site (to a different building).

The Blue Force Tracker folks dismounted the bus, found Building 77462, entered the building and asked where the Blue Force Tracker training was supposed to be. No one knew. The training scheduled in Building 77462 was the Combat Lifesaver's Course. So, we exited the building and started wandering around. Some of us went across the street to Building 77465 (a brand new building with a security fence) and we found out that this was the place for the Blue Force Tracker training. The instructors had been waiting for 30 minutes. Once we corralled everybody in, they started the training. The retired 1SG who gave the class, was excellent, very professional and he taught the class very well. You can tell he was very knowledgeable with the system.

Tuesday, there was a scheduled VTC for 20 of the MiTT Chiefs to talk about manning issues with Department of the Army - Human Resouces Command and MNC-I. The VTC was scheduled at 09.00 hrs and was routed through an international line (via Stuttart, Germany). However, the phone in the Brigade's VTC suite did not have IDSN (International DSN) access. Therefore, we were unable to "dial in" to the conference. The VTC suite could dial any CONUS number, but there were no CONUS lines availabe to handle the VTC. So we had to postpone the VTC until Wednesday.

Also on Tuesday... You would think 1/16 INF would have the bus scheduled fixed... No.
The buses didn't show until 08.55 hrs this time as well. Half the Blue Force Tracker class didn't wait for the bus and took there POVs instead. Only a handful of folks actually took the bus. I ended up taking a taxi to the class, because there was no plan to get us MiTT Chiefs to where we needed to go after the VTC (the VTC that never happened, that is).

Wednesday... Both soda machines and the Ice Cream machine in the Dining Facility broke down. Which might have been a good thing... since those items aren't the most healthy for us !!! Interestingly, the morale of the Dining Facility workforce was more worse than the soldiers'.

Thursday... Team Griffin began it's driver's familiarization training. The training facility is roughly 1 mile from the barracks. (Remember, the bus lot, with about 50 buses, is 200 meters away). When we were here prepping for our Leader's Recon, we were bused to this location. This time we had to walk, while the Delta Company Commander and 1SG drove to the site to "check on training". On this day Team Griffin conducted roll-over drill training, PMCS familiarization, Change a tire familiarization and techniques for towing a disabled vehicle familiarization. The class of about 115 of us received an hour's worth of instruction on the training we were about to conduct. We then split into 3 smaller groups to exectue the roll-over training, familiarization training and the day-time driving familiarization. Most of our time was spent waiting in the cue for our 8-10 minutes worth of training.

Thursday night we did night time familiarization. Here, we find out the the OC's had to turn in their Night Vision goggles last week. So they didn't have night vision goggles and had to borrow ours. The first group of vehicles that went out for training... one of the vehicles ran into a ditch and nearly flipped the vehicle. I don't know if the OC was wearing night vision goggles or not. But my guess is, he wasn't. It took about 30 minutes to recover the vehicle and continue the training.

Friday... We received 3 hours of classroom instruction on Pre-Combat Checks/ Inspections, Troop Leading Procedures, Battle Drills and convoy tactics, techniques and procedures. This was all done in a hangar facility, in 90+ degrees heat and two high power fans blowing. This instruction was probably one of our most important classes, but the training environment was not conducive to any constructive learning. After the 3 hours of instruction we broke for lunch. Once again we had to walk 1 mile back and forth to the training site. We got a little smarter this time; we had one vehicle carry our IBE (which weighs approximately 45 pounds) and we carried only our weapons back and forth.

Before we broke for chow, the Delta Company Commander drove to the training site and asked to speak to all us MiTT Chiefs. Once he gathered us all in one group he asked us to tell our soldiers to refrain from parking in the parking spots next to the row of Company office trailers. His soldiers had no place to park and had to walk 100 meters to work !!!

Obviously, it's this Company Commander's opinion that it is a complete "NO GO" and failure of leadership on the MiTT Chief's part, to make regular army soldiers walk 100 meters to their place of duty, but it's ok to have "trainees" walk a mile back and forth to class !!!

(honestly... I didn't realize this was the "leadership" lesson I was going to learn while training for this mission).

Guess what the Dining Facility decided to do during lunch on this Friday? They decided to take a survey on what we thought of the facility and the food !!!

If you've been following this week so far... you can only imagine what's sitting on those survey forms. The honest truth about the dining facility - It's under resourced. It's smaller than the facilities on top of the hill. It's busier then the facilities on top of the hill. It has a smaller workforce. It doesn't carry the same quality of food. There are many shortages. And the workers at times have an attitude. But the root problem is... the facility is under-resourced for the soldiers it's supposed to support.

Friday afternoon began the IED lanes. This is where we go out on a patrol and react to a roadside IED that hasn't gone off. And then we react to one that has, where we must recover the disabled vehicle. Since, Team Griffin was the 7th team in the "pecking order" to go out, we had 2 hours to talk over and rehearse how we would conduct the mission. The NCO that OC'd Team Griffin was absolutely superior. He listened to our "game plan" pointed out some weaknesses to it, and helped us improve it. He also watched our rehearsal and asked questions to see if everyone knew what their role was supposed to be. He also helped us think through alternate plans and alternate responsibilities. He was a tremendous asset to our training.

We also learned that most of the HWWMVs the unit had for this training had been shipped to JRTC. And because the mission was being shipped to JRTC so has the funding. So, simple things like having night vision goggles or ordering speakers for the radios can't be resourced. The old standard had been that Team Griffin would have been issued our vehicles in the first 3 days of our training. But now we must wait for the class ahead of us to finish before we will get issued the vehicles. So for now, we're short vehicles. This is true for both the OCs and the classes going through the training.

Saturday... we again walked 1 mile to receive our Primary Marksmanship Instruction. We broke off into four groups and conducted the training round robin style. Team Griffin was scheduled to go through the Electronic Simulation Trainer, which is a "shoot or don't shoot" simulation, at 12.00 hrs. We showed up early to see if we could go through the simulation first and then eat at a more liesurely pace, since weapons turn-in wouldn't be until 14.30 hrs. But no one was at the training facility when we checked at 11.20 hrs. Team Griffin ate lunch and returned at 11.55 hrs for training. The facility was still locked up and no one in sight. We called D 1/16 IN 1SG to find out if we were at the wrong location. The ISG was unable to contact the folks who run the training. At 12.30 hrs, we got word the training was cancelled and to show back up at 14.30 hrs to turn in weapons.

So, basically this week started out with a failure to coordinate for buses and ended with a failure to coordinate a facility. For the two months of being here... this is just a "standard" week for 1st Bde's training mission at Camp Funston. Next week is range week... Oh Joy !!!

On a serious note, this week adds more evidence that this training mission is severely under-resourced. Some aspects of the training is absolutely first rate while other parts simply do not meet the Army Standard. It won't mean we won't be ready to deploy. It just means the training is not to the standard you'd expect from a professionally run organization.