Posted on Jan 9, 2015
SGT James Elphick
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As the Army continues with the Brigade Combat Team unit of action alignment should there be additional training required to be assigned to such a unit? The BCT holds only mission critical units and MOS's and can be deployed rapidly to austere conditions (especially in the case of the light/airborne BCT's). Is Basic Training really enough to prepare a soldier for such an endeavor? My proposal would be Expeditionary Warfare Training. This would be similar to the Marine Corps Marine Combat Training in that it would prepare all soldiers who went through the training to fight. However, on top of that because of the modern nature of warfare it would help all levels of personnel understand the mission and complexity of expeditionary warfare and how it relates to them personally in their unit. I would even recommend that the infantry go through this as well to ensure proficiency and to increase their knowledge of their units mission should they be called to deploy. To keep costs down this course would only be a requirement if a soldier was going into a BCT and once completed would not need to be done again.
Posted in these groups: Train2 TrainingImgres Deployment
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CW5 Desk Officer
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I haven't been there, SGT James Elphick, but I like your proposal. If there were time to allow all Soldiers to train with the unit, the course you propose might not be required. That's probably not going to be the case, so I like a higher baseline for folks going to BCTs, and I think this type of training can bring folks up to that baseline. I vote yes, good idea.
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SGT James Elphick
SGT James Elphick
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One of the reasons I thought of this was because when I deployed the first time I was in my unit for 3 weeks before we hit the ground in Afghanistan. By the time of our first large scale mission my experience with the unit consisted of zeroing my rifle and pulling guard. Then after being out of the service and discussing the amount of training that EVERY Marine goes through I thought it would be worthwhile.

I also think you are correct that if time allowed that the soldiers training as a unit would be beneficial. However this has been the Army's standard and I'm not sure it is properly preparing soldiers for the trials of deployment.
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