Training in the NG/Reserves

SGT Private RallyPoint Member — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 18:18:16 -0400

Do you, as a Reserve or NG leader implement Warrior Task Training in your units? Do you find them important? I understand that there are financial restraints to certain tasks, such as range qual., but what about land navigation and react to fire?

Do you believe in hip-pocket training?

Are there certain skills that you feel every soldier should maintain, regardless of MOS?

In my situation, I have recently learned that none of my platoon knew what a "wedge formation" was. Neither did they know the basics of land navigation. I concede that as a support unit, some of these tasks aren't necessarily vital to a mechanized unit, but many of them are most definitely applicable.
What are your thoughts? Are we allowing a sort of complacency in training or should we focus our time on exclusive proficiency in our respective MOSs?

Response by SSG John Erny made Oct 15 at 2014 6:21 PM

SSG John Erny — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 18:21:26 -0400

I am out now but with the spending cuts all they do now is CTT, no money for fuel

Response by SSG Keven Lahde made Oct 15 at 2014 8:12 PM

SSG Keven Lahde — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 20:12:29 -0400

SGT Private RallyPoint Member Our unit does hip-pocket training since its an MP unit. I don't really get a chance to participate in it since I am not an MP and the training doesn't relate to me since I am a cook. But us cooks we do some training and we do go to the range once every 6 months. But sometimes I wish I could go more. But overall hip-pocket training is vital since drill weekend not much is going on.

Response by SSG Keven Lahde made Oct 15 at 2014 9:13 PM

SSG Keven Lahde — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 21:13:49 -0400

SGT Private RallyPoint Member I think a lot of units don't do land nav unless its either AT or pre-mob training. I think Land Nav is good to know and is one of the easiest to forget if not done on a regular basis. And a wedge formation, I thought that was taught at basic?? I could be wrong. But I thought that was part AWT??

Response by SPC(P) Jay Heenan made Oct 15 at 2014 9:45 PM

SPC(P) Jay Heenan — Wed, 15 Oct 2014 21:45:46 -0400

This is a great topic! I am not NG or RC, but I have a couple of really good battles that are AGR's. We discuss this topic often and there are tons of problems when you are stuffing to many hours of good training into not enough weekend. Not to mention, some can't even do their MOS during the weekends. So really, all you have left is hip pocket training and basic Soldier skills.

Response by CPT Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 16 at 2014 7:20 AM

CPT Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 07:20:39 -0400

That is a great question. This is overlooked often. I try to make sure that my soldiers are trained in the platoon supporting tasks for the Company METL. Your PL should have a set tasks that they should be training on to support the company METL. Usually these will line up with the 40 warrior tasks and 9 battle drills.

All soldiers should be perficient in the 40 tasks and 9 drills. They are soldiers and should know these tasks. You being a Trans unit I would even focus on complex tasks such as machine gun logic as you would be doing convoys.

But this is where you company leadership should assess your training level and plan accordingly. But many don't see an issue with not knowing the basics. They know enough just to function and for them that is "Good Enough." They are all soldiers and I would really question my leadership. It may be difficult to plan. They may come up with 100 reasons why they can't do but there is one reason why they have too. That one reason is the SOLDIER. They need it. Look no further than PFC Jessica Lynch. This is why you have to issue innovation to develop training. If you have to use little plastic soldiers to teach formations of movement it is better than nothing. You don't need any training area to do that. This is a failure of the leadership there and the only exhibits the compliancy of the NCOs there.

I am glad we don't have that here. At our MOB station we asked for training area out in the field to train on additional tasks and battle drills and the base was shocked. They were surprised we wanted to train beyond the standard basic tasks.

When you become an NCO there you can address this. If you need any help with this or adding those with developing a plan let me know. I would be more than willing to help out.

Response by MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca made Oct 16 at 2014 12:04 PM

MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 12:04:06 -0400

This is an unfortunate sign of the times. I came up in the era where even officers carried a CTT (as it was known back then) manual in their pocket for down time - and trust me there was plenty of it. Today it seems like that train of though has long ago left the station.

Response by SSG Private RallyPoint Member made Oct 16 at 2014 12:55 PM

SSG Private RallyPoint Member — Thu, 16 Oct 2014 12:55:16 -0400

When you have 500hr of briefings and only 300hr of time with the soldiers there is not much room for other tasks. This is a shame these are skills we need to keep up on. As well as spending time in our mos’s. if we are to stay tacitly and technically proficient we need time to train. I know things like SHARP are important but we still need time with our soldiers to keep them ready for whatever situation comes our way. As NG we are getting put in to more and more situations where we need to be well rounded and just being an expert PowerPoint ranger will not do it. Just my thoughts.