How'd I get into this MESS!
I thought that I'd give everyone some background about how I ended up going to Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) which is what the war in Afghanistan is called. As an aside, military types, are infamous for using acronyms in everything so I'll try to define them as I go along, if I forget you can comment and let me know. I once on a bet made a whole paragraph of nothing but acronyms!
On 31 JUL I was mobilized for deployment, I am an Infantry Officer, Major, with the Nevada National Guard. I believe in what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. The fastest way out of there is to get them stabilized and able to take care of their own country and hopefully me going means that somebody else doesn't have to go later. I was on a mission similar to this while deployed to Operation Restore Democracy, invasion of Haiti, and I enjoyed it and saw the direct impact that we made.
The unit that I'm assigned to is an Embedded Training Team (ETT) or Military Transition Team (MiTT) as they're called in Iraq. This team consists of 16 senior officers and NCOs who are tasked with training all aspects of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP), we are all combat arms. Props to our former state MRO who got us the mission and then had a bold flanking maneuver conducted on him so he couldn't go with us. We'll miss you brother! Most of my team is made up of Armored Cavalry and the rest of us are Infantry. You who have military backgrounds may say, "Hey isn't that a Special Forces mission to train foreign internal defense" and you are correct. However, we don't have enough Green Berets to go around and thus ETTs are invented. As I stated before we are responsible for all training and advising both operational and logistical. Additionally, we conduct operations with the Afghan forces and utilize coalition effects to support the mentored unit. That's the Army Cool Speak way of saying we go out with them and call for artillery, close air support, medevac and make sure they don't starve. The Afghans are a whole different type than the Iraqis. As I was told by an Afghan linguist, "The Afghans are good at three things soccer, volleyball and killing people." The Afghans already know how to fight and fight well; they've been doing it long before America was even discovered and are the only people ever to defeat the Mongols. So you have to give them some street cred there! Our job is to teach them how to do it more efficiently and support themselves logistically during and after operations. There you have it ETTs in a nutshell, I'm sure some nut ball at the pentagon could take what I've just written and make it into several field manuals (FMs).
If you dig deeper inside our mission you'll find that at the heart of what we do is Counterinsurgency Warfare (CI) addressing the causes of insurgency. If you're really interested in learning about it please read "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife" by LTC Jon Nagl. I'll refrain from saying CI is the new face of warfare as it's always changing but I will say it's the en vogue form.
Our training for this mission started prior to our actual mobilization. We conducted weapons training with support from Las Vegas Metro SWAT, Troy was invaluable in dialing in our long range skills. I don't want to be in that guys cross hairs as it's game over. The great state of Nevada was extremely generous in purchasing additional equipment for us, later at FT Riley we would find out how fortunate we were. So please go to Vegas or Reno and gamble so we can collect the taxes! Additionally, we conducted Combat Lifesaver Training and Up Armored HUMVEE drivers training. All of this was done in Las Vegas, which probably sounds really cool, YEAH VEGAS but it's different going to train there vs. going to party there. I have to say that everyone that we asked for support was more than willing to help us out. This training time also allowed us to get to know everyone on the team. We all came from different units within the state so we needed to meet each other and learn the personalities. Now for another aside, I won't use anyones name from the team unless they tell me it's OK due to any operational security (OPSEC) they may have. Overall, our premob training was very effective and we did sort out some possible issues in the teams structure. Next up FT Riley!
On 31 JUL I was mobilized for deployment, I am an Infantry Officer, Major, with the Nevada National Guard. I believe in what we're trying to do in Afghanistan. The fastest way out of there is to get them stabilized and able to take care of their own country and hopefully me going means that somebody else doesn't have to go later. I was on a mission similar to this while deployed to Operation Restore Democracy, invasion of Haiti, and I enjoyed it and saw the direct impact that we made.
The unit that I'm assigned to is an Embedded Training Team (ETT) or Military Transition Team (MiTT) as they're called in Iraq. This team consists of 16 senior officers and NCOs who are tasked with training all aspects of the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan National Police (ANP), we are all combat arms. Props to our former state MRO who got us the mission and then had a bold flanking maneuver conducted on him so he couldn't go with us. We'll miss you brother! Most of my team is made up of Armored Cavalry and the rest of us are Infantry. You who have military backgrounds may say, "Hey isn't that a Special Forces mission to train foreign internal defense" and you are correct. However, we don't have enough Green Berets to go around and thus ETTs are invented. As I stated before we are responsible for all training and advising both operational and logistical. Additionally, we conduct operations with the Afghan forces and utilize coalition effects to support the mentored unit. That's the Army Cool Speak way of saying we go out with them and call for artillery, close air support, medevac and make sure they don't starve. The Afghans are a whole different type than the Iraqis. As I was told by an Afghan linguist, "The Afghans are good at three things soccer, volleyball and killing people." The Afghans already know how to fight and fight well; they've been doing it long before America was even discovered and are the only people ever to defeat the Mongols. So you have to give them some street cred there! Our job is to teach them how to do it more efficiently and support themselves logistically during and after operations. There you have it ETTs in a nutshell, I'm sure some nut ball at the pentagon could take what I've just written and make it into several field manuals (FMs).
If you dig deeper inside our mission you'll find that at the heart of what we do is Counterinsurgency Warfare (CI) addressing the causes of insurgency. If you're really interested in learning about it please read "Learning to Eat Soup with a Knife" by LTC Jon Nagl. I'll refrain from saying CI is the new face of warfare as it's always changing but I will say it's the en vogue form.
Our training for this mission started prior to our actual mobilization. We conducted weapons training with support from Las Vegas Metro SWAT, Troy was invaluable in dialing in our long range skills. I don't want to be in that guys cross hairs as it's game over. The great state of Nevada was extremely generous in purchasing additional equipment for us, later at FT Riley we would find out how fortunate we were. So please go to Vegas or Reno and gamble so we can collect the taxes! Additionally, we conducted Combat Lifesaver Training and Up Armored HUMVEE drivers training. All of this was done in Las Vegas, which probably sounds really cool, YEAH VEGAS but it's different going to train there vs. going to party there. I have to say that everyone that we asked for support was more than willing to help us out. This training time also allowed us to get to know everyone on the team. We all came from different units within the state so we needed to meet each other and learn the personalities. Now for another aside, I won't use anyones name from the team unless they tell me it's OK due to any operational security (OPSEC) they may have. Overall, our premob training was very effective and we did sort out some possible issues in the teams structure. Next up FT Riley!
Comments