JBER MPs gain practice, confidence in combat training

  • Published
  • By JBER Public Affairs staff report
JOINT BASE ELMENDORF-RICHARDSON, Alaska --  Pfc. Jeremy Calvin was covered in sweat under the weight of his helmet, body armor and hundreds of rounds of ammunition. He crouched behind his team leader in a narrow, dusty alley in a village reported to be occupied by the insurgency.

Because he was welded to his team leader and the Soldier hunched behind him, it took little prompting for the El Paso, Texas, native to move when the team entered the house. All four Soldiers swiftly fanned out into the small sitting room, making sure to cover all windows and entryways but finding nothing.

Stacking up again, the 164th Military Police Company fire team repeated the process for the adjacent living room, but with decidedly different results. This time, they found a man with an AK-47 assault rifle cradled on his lap. After an extremely tense moment, the team managed to peacefully disarm the man and detain him for questioning.

This scenario often plays out in the villages of Afghanistan, but in this case it was part of the 164th MP's situational training exercise at the Baumeister City Military Operations on Urban Terrain Complex here July 24.

Sgt. William Burt, of Lufkin, Texas, who served as a 164th MP observer/controller during the exercise, said the STX lanes tested the mettle of Soldiers in three phases - land navigation, movement to contact, and room clearance/detainee operations.

Phase One began when the company left the unit motorpool en route to the training site. Upon arrival, the Soldiers received a report from a simulated host nation security agency requiring them to find three pieces of intelligence.

The impromptu land-navigation course tested the MPs' ability to move over rough terrain without the assistance of a GPS, said Sgt. Matthew Ramage, a 164th MP team leader and a native of Cleveland.

"You should always have a map and a compass," Ramage said of the tried-and-true military instruments. "The basics are always important."

The last point the MPs navigated to was a simulated weapons cache, prompting the Soldiers to process the find and report the intelligence to higher headquarters.
Burt said Phase Two entailed a patrol through rough terrain with brush as high as seven feet tall.

"[JBER has] probably one of the best training areas, because you're going to get to test your endurance," he said. "You get to see what you're made of."

The culminating event for Phase Two was tactical care of a casualty while under fire. During this phase, teams were required to carry a 200-pound dummy on a stretcher over uneven terrain.

"The dummy has to be heavy," Burt said. "Because, if that was one of your battle buddies down range, they would be an average of 170 pounds plus whatever gear they wear."
Calvin said Phase Three was unique, because it involved entering and clearing buildings while using non-lethal means to neutralize armed personnel. Because citizens in host nations can often be legally armed with automatic, military-grade weapons; it is critical for Soldiers to be able to discern when to use lethal force, and when to disarm and detain.

"This training is important because it deals with the law enforcement side, and because it's important for our deployed mission," Calvin said. "It will save my life and the lives of those on my left and on my right."

For a few junior MPs looking to become noncommissioned officers, the training offered opportunities to step up when leaders became simulated casualties. Spc. Rebecca Carpenter, from Cheyenne, Wyo., said she was ready for the added responsibility if the situation demanded it.

"We should always train to fight," she said. "If the team leader is down, it's up to me to take his place and to make the decisions of where we should go and what we should do."

Satisfied with their demonstrated competency in core tasks and their adaptability during numerous scenarios, Ramage said he was assured of his Soldiers' capability to function in modern combat.

"You can't babysit them on the battlefield," he said. "You have to be confident in your Soldiers. That's why you have to train them everyday and make sure they're combat ready. That's an NCO's responsibility."