May 1, 2006

TRAINING GROUND (via The Mother Judd):

Mock Iraqi Villages in Mojave Prepare Troops for Battle (DEXTER FILKINS and JOHN F. BURNS, 5/01/06, NY Times)

FORT IRWIN, Calif. — Three years into the conflict in Iraq, the front line in the American drive to prepare troops for insurgent warfare runs through a cluster of mock Iraqi villages deep in the Mojave Desert, nearly 10,000 miles from the realities awaiting the soldiers outside Baghdad and Mosul and Falluja.

Out here, 150 miles northeast of Los Angeles, units of the 10th Mountain Division from Fort Drum, N.Y., are among the latest war-bound troops who have gone through three weeks of training that introduce them to the harsh episodes that characterize the American experience in Iraq.

In a 1,000-square-mile region on the edge of Death Valley, Arab-Americans, many of them from the Iraqi expatriate community in San Diego, populate a group of mock villages resembling their counterparts in Iraq. American soldiers at forward operating bases nearby face insurgent uprisings, suicide bombings and even staged beheadings in underground tunnels. Recently, the soldiers here, like their counterparts in Iraq, have been confronted with Sunni-Shiite riots. At one village, a secret guerrilla revolt is in the works.

With actors and stuntmen on loan from Hollywood, American generals have recast the training ground at Fort Irwin so effectively as a simulation of conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 20 months that some soldiers have left with battle fatigue and others have had their orders for deployment to the war zones canceled. In at least one case, a soldier's career was ended for unnecessarily "killing" civilians.

"We would rather you got killed here than in Iraq," said Maj. John Clearwater, a veteran of the Special Forces who works at the training center.

The troops who come here are at the heart of a vast shift in American war-fighting strategy, a multibillion-dollar effort to remodel the Army on the fly.


When the Other Brother was stationed there he'd lead a unit of "Soviet" troops against American trainees.

Posted by Orrin Judd at May 1, 2006 7:51 AM
Comments

I did training out at Fort Irwin before 9/11. They were simply know then as "OPFOR" and were deadly effective then. Nice to know they adjust their training to reflect the times.

Posted by: Brad S at May 1, 2006 9:15 AM

I'd love to hear some tales from Other Brother about what that was like.

Posted by: John Weidner at May 1, 2006 10:18 AM

When I was with the 24th ID I did three training rotations at Ft. Irwin. In hindsight, all were very amusing experiences.

Posted by: H.D. Miller at May 1, 2006 10:33 AM

I think it's terrible that our gvt is forcing the poor Iraqi expats into concentration camps in the middle of the desert. (They couldn't have volunteered to help George Bush's illegal and failed war against their homeland and people, could they?) Did we learn nothing from the Japanese internment?

/mooonbat off

Posted by: Jim in Chicago at May 1, 2006 10:37 AM

We used to play rough, when I was with the 82nd Abn. Div., and we had field exercises with/against the 101st. We had M-14's that shot blanks. If you stuck your weapon in the ground and put about 1/2 an inch of dirt in the barrel, you could aim and shoot at them to stop them from capturing you. Judging by their expression, I'd say it hurt quite a bit.

Posted by: AllenS at May 1, 2006 12:22 PM

When I first arrived at Ft Irwin in 1988, we (the OPFOR) portrayed the Krasnovians, a military based on Soviet tactics and armaments. In 1990 we switched to portray an Iraqi-type army and tried training the National Guard forces due to deploy to Desert Storm (the war was over before they could deploy).

The Blue Forces were always pissed because they thought we won most battles due to knowledge of the terrain. In reality, it was because we fought together constantly and knew how to communicate and what to expect from each other. That was the point of the training exercises, to give the army units an opportunity to "fight" in large groups and work out the skills that can only be developed and honed in a "combat-like" environment.

One of the reasons I left the military was a Colonel telling me that he couldn't take his units out to train in the field before coming to Ft Irwin, because he didn't have the money for fuel and ammo.

Posted by: The Other Brother at May 1, 2006 3:58 PM
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