Posted on 06/14/2006 4:34:25 PM PDT by SandRat
FORT GILLEM, Ga. (Army News Service, June 14, 2006) – First Army trainers charged with preparing National Guard and Reserve Soldiers for deployment to Iraq and Afghanistan updated their knowledge on IEDs last week.
Eighty-five trainers met via video-teleconference with a unit currently serving in Iraq to learn about the latest tactics insurgents are using in IED attacks. The information will be used to update IED instruction Soldiers receive during theater immersion training.
“We have to create awareness in our Soldiers,” said First Army Command Sgt. Maj. Marvin Hill. “We are sinking everything into this training to make it tough and realistic. We want the attacks to be repetitive and unexpected, at all hours of the day and night, to create an intuitive response in Soldiers. We don’t want the first “bang” to stop Soldiers from thinking about their next response.”
First Army has labeled its IED trainers “IED Master Gunners.” The phrase is borrowed from the esteemed Master Gunner Program that began in the 1970’s at the Army’s Armor School. The original Master Gunner concept was that a tank expert, or Master Gunner, resides in armor units as an advisor and assistant to the commander in the development and execution of his critical gunnery program.
More than half of First Army’s IED Master Gunners have served in Iraq or Afghanistan – some twice.
Teaching Soldiers to be observant and notice day to day changes in their environments can help them detect and avoid IEDs, especially when Soldiers report their suspicions to the Explosive Ordnance Detachment (EOD), said Maj. Gen. John Yingling, First Army deputy commanding general.
“Insurgents don’t follow any rules and it doesn’t take a brave insurgent to dig a hole and plant an IED. You trainers can give our Soldiers that extra edge to save their lives,” Yingling told trainers.
“I am in close contact with mobilizing Soldiers as an observer controller/trainer and this Master Gunner workshop is invaluable in learning the newest tactics and techniques that the enemy is employing in country. We will rapidly translate this information into our Situational Training Exercise lanes and training plans,” said Capt. Elizabeth Ryser of the 312th Regiment, 78th Division (Training Support), at Fort Dix, N.J.
Subject matter experts from the Combined Explosive Hazard Center, Center of Army Lessons Learned, Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization, Central Command and Coalition Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC) also shared information from their particular disciplines during the workshop.
(Editor’s note: Karen Bradshaw works for the First Army Public Affairs Office.)
Learning how to beat IEDs
I learend about those in junior high health class.
Not IUDs, IEDs........
IPD's?
Improvised Explosive Devices
The term, "Improvised Explosive Device" has become a misnomer. The shaped-charge, electronically, or remotely detonated roadside mines are manufactured in Iran and are hardly improvised devices.
They are sophisticated mines that defeat armor, even tanks. We gotta come up with a way to detonate them in advance of our team's arrival.
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