Guardsmen Say They're Facing Iraq Ill-Trained

Los Angeles Times ^ | Nov 25, 2004 | Scott Gold

[centurion316]

DOÑA ANA RANGE, N.M. — Members of a California Army National Guard battalion preparing for deployment to Iraq said this week that they were under strict lockdown and being treated like prisoners rather than soldiers by Army commanders at the remote desert camp where they are training.

More troubling, a number of the soldiers said, is that the training they have received is so poor and equipment shortages so prevalent that they fear their casualty rate will be needlessly high when they arrive in Iraq early next year. "We are going to pay for this in blood," one soldier said.

[FRMAG]

First, I'm a retired first sergeant with 26 years of active service in the Army. So much for bonafides.

If you have 200 troops to train and 20 pairs of NVGs (assuming they all work)you train those troops in blocks of fifteen till they become proficient and then cycle the next group of 15.

Blocks of 15 give you a float so one piece of downchecked equipment in the training block does not stop that group from training or leave any troop behind.

However I retired in 91 when NCOS still pretty much ran training using long experience and common sense. now it seems to be handled to a butter bar who has no idea about it except what the "book" says.

Not every troop needs their own personal piece of equipment in a training scenario. Same crap came up a while ago when some whineing momma hit the news griping that her little angel did not get issued his own set of binocs.

When those troops hit the AO they will be issued the equipment they need to go to war. In the meantime, share as you go is a workable concept.