Posted on 01/25/2004 6:49:45 AM PST by SandRat
FORT HUACHUCA - Some soldiers being trained at this Southern Arizona Army post will go directly to a combat zone as part of special small human intelligence teams, unmanned aerial vehicle platoons or larger units.
Maj. Gen. James Marks, who commands the Intelligence Center and the fort, said it is critical for the Army to have trained intelligence soldiers who can be rapidly deployed to begin work in some of the world's hot spots, especially in Iraq, where there is a massive exchange of soldiers.
"Right now we are in the middle of relief in place or transfer of authority. We have 300,000 soldiers doing this. They're getting up and they're moving," he said. "This is about 75 percent of the Army that is moving. That is a significant thing, especially while we still are executing a war."
Relief in place is the riskiest thing a military can do, and it is even more so when there is a need to keep operational situation awareness, including intelligence, at a high level, the general said.
This has led the Intelligence Center to look at innovative ways to support combat commanders and that means the school house on the post is adapting to the changes quickly.
Marks made his comments about what can be called the state of the Intelligence Center and Fort Huachuca during a two-hour interview Friday with the Sierra Vista Herald/Bisbee Daily Review. Jerry Proctor, deputy commandant of the center, and Col. Lawrence Portouw, the garrison commander, also took part in the interview.
The trio spoke about the changes happening at the center, the importance of the high-technology partners on the fort and the civilian community support for the post.
For 100 years, the Army has trained soldiers and then sent them to units to be assimilated, which is when the majority of the team building took place, Marks said.
But in today's world, things have to be done differently. The Intelligence Center is developing new ways to bring soldiers together on the fort after AIT, or after being activated, so they can be a team when they deploy.
"Our primary mission is the AIT soldiers," Proctor said. "Two years ago we gave them quality and relevant training."
To be on top of the global war on terrorism, training has to be changed for some of the military intelligence occupational specialties, he said. It is new quality and relevant training.
Marks said Proctor steers the intelligence training ship "and in many cases changes the size and shape of the ship, which is like building a ship as it is under way."
Because of the war on terror, Proctor said soldiers are learning lessons in the field that are more relevant. And the training on the fort is being made as realistic as possible so that soldiers can deploy directly from the post.
"They are being taught the things they need to survive and thrive in the (combat) environment," Proctor said.
AIT soldiers and those from the Reserve components who are being retrained into intelligence military occupational specialists also are being taught about cultural, political, tribal, ethnic and socio-economic issues as part of the special team building process.
Next month, some Reservist component soldiers will be coming to the post from Fort Bliss, Texas, where they are currently in processing. The Reservists will arrive for a 12-week special course, head back to Texas and deploy to the war zone, Proctor said.
As for AIT soldiers who graduate from the Intelligence Center and stay on for additional training, "you'll see them board a C-5 on Fort Huachuca and get off the C-5 in Iraq," he said.
Marks added, "What Jerry is saying is a foot stomper. We are training the individual soldier here to be a technical and tactical expert. Now there is additional training that makes them a member of a team."
The Army can no longer afford to go through the crawl, walk, run stages because of the need for a soldier to hit the ground running right away, the general said.
Proctor said additional training on the fort includes tactical vehicle driving.
"That doesn't sound very sexy, but it is important," he said. "A soldier is learning to drive a humvee in a tactical environment and there will be ambushes and the soldiers will train in full combat gear, so when they open a door and try to get out they will fall on their head,"
It is better to fall on one's head in a training environment than in the heat of battle, Proctor added.
On average, it takes 27 days for a soldier to complete AIT training until they arrive in a combat zone.
"Kids are doing it immediately," Marks said. "They go on leave for a week and a half and then boom they deploy."
Portouw said he recently told people attending a family readiness group about how fast soldiers deploy after being trained.
"That number (27 days) really galvanized them. You could have heard a pin dropped," he said.
The Intelligence Center is not just sending recently trained soldiers to combat zones. A number of Mobile Training Teams from the post are fanning out over the world to help prepare units to deploy so they understand the importance of being intelligence gatherers.
Proctor said soldiers coming back from war zones are being tapped to be instructors so they can impart what they have learned in the intelligence fields to provide it to the young soldiers and those instructors who have not been in a combat area.
Marks called that policy another foot stomper.
"We are getting dibs on those soldiers (returning from deployment), and we are identifying folks here who need to go to the field for experience," he said.
To Marks, there is no doubt the Army can win the combat part of a conflict.
It is becoming adaptable in the phase after combat where there is still a lot of danger, as insurgent attacks in Iraq are showing.
For more than 40 years, the United States and its allies were prepared in case the Cold War went hot. The Cold War with the former Soviet Union is over, but now the country is facing a different situation which he said he believes will last for the next two decades.
"The global war on terrorism is going to be this generation of soldiers' Cold War," Marks said. "The military intelligence (training) community cannot be static, we have a moral duty to prepare the soldiers for what they will face."
This is the first in a three-part series called "State of the Fort." Today's story deals with training on Fort Huachuca.
FORT HUACHUCA - Some soldiers being trained at this Southern Arizona Army post will go directly to a combat zone as part of special small human intelligence teams, unmanned aerial vehicle platoons or larger units.
Maj. Gen. James Marks, who commands the Intelligence Center and the fort, said it is critical for the Army to have trained intelligence soldiers who can be rapidly deployed to begin work in some of the world's hot spots, especially in Iraq, where there is a massive exchange of soldiers.
..For 100 years, the Army has trained soldiers and then sent them to units to be assimilated, which is when the majority of the team building took place, Marks said.
But in today's world, things have to be done differently.
...On average, it takes 27 days for a soldier to complete AIT training until they arrive in a combat zone.
Not so much any more. 70 miles from Tucson and it's all Expressway and divided 4-lane. The stretch from Tucson to the HWY 90 is building up fast. More veggitation is growing no make that abounding so the dust issue is pretty much gone.
Come back and take a look it's not what you may be remembering.
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