to this has been an open-minded and practical approach to finding new ways to simulate equipment and experiences that soldiers in the real world would regularly encounter. These include things like:
• Opposing Forces (OPFOR): Almost all military training centers have some sort of OPFOR to enhance the training experience of the participating units. However, the JRTC OPFOR team is much more flexible and aggressive than those at other training centers. Drawn from the 1 st Battalion of the 509th PIR (1/509), they are able to simulate threat military units as large as a Soviet-style regiment, though usually they work in smaller formations. At any given time, the JRTC OPFOR personnel may be simulating terrorist or guerrilla groups, or regular army troops with particular national “bents” or biases.
• Non-Enemy Players: Most wars take place in locations that people (civilians) choose to live. However, very little has been done to simulate the effects of a civilian population or civilian agencies on the battlefield. At JRTC, the U.S. force will be faced with a variety of such folks, ranging from law enforcement personnel and relief agency workers, to the local gentry and a highly aggressive media pool. These are all real-world problems for battlefield commanders like Colonel Petreaus, and failure to deal with them during a JRTC deployment may result in not fully completing your assigned military missions. However, the lessons learned are almost immeasurable. The players are role-player civilians on the battlefield, employed by the local mission support contractor, and are quite good at their jobs.
• Casualties: There is a highly realistic depiction of casualty assessment, combined with real-world casualty evacuation and replacement procedures. In short, if you have personnel “wounded” or “killed” at JRTC, then you will have to MEDEVAC and treat them as you would a real casualty. The payoff for doing this right is that you will quickly get the wounded soldier back through the replacement system. One note: Everyone on the battlefield, except for members of the O/C team, is wired with the same kind of Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System (MILES) scoring system, including the noncombatant role players. God help you if your forces hurt or kill one of those!
• Realism: One of the primary complaints about the NTC and other military training centers is that the situations are “sterile” or “canned,” more like unreal or “laboratory” exercises. Well, at JRTC, every single deployment is different, and is based upon a lot of input from the command staff of the unit being trained. In addition, the JRTC staff like to throw in little “chunks” of realistic detail, just to keep things lively and interesting. For example, the size of a particular threat force will be what drives the objectives of the friendly forces. But in the event of a friendly force unit getting too far ahead of their OPFOR opponents, plan on seeing the exercise observer/controller (O/C) staff ramp up the threat level or size of the OPFOR the friendly unit is facing. Finally, wherever possible, the O/C and OPFOR personnel try to salt the battlefield with examples of real-world threats and capabilities, just to keep everyone on their toes. For example, there is a small squadron of actual Russian-built aircraft for use in JRTC exercises, including an AN-2 Colt biplane, as well as an Mi-17 Hip transport and an Mi-24 Hind attack helicopter. You have to see the looks on an Avenger gunner the first time he stares down a Hind on an attack run!
• Mine Warfare: Despite their generally bad reputation these days, nobody is about to stop using land mines, including the U.S. military. Since mines are a primary cause of infantry wounds, mine deployment, clearing, and casualty assessment are closely modeled at JRTC.
• Friction Elements: Once upon a time, Count Von Clausewitz, the great Prussian military mind, defined “friction” elements as things that keep you from carrying out assigned tasks or achieving objectives. In the real world, these are things like blown tires, forgotten equipment, and lost messages. At JRTC, though, the exercise control staff has a diabolical list of events that are carefully designed to stress and test the players’ units and staff to the maximum degree possible. Things like terrorists throwing satchel charges and detonating truck bombs at checkpoints and other critical locations. Or perhaps the local civilian population turning their “hearts and minds” over to the enemy, because of a poor “Community Relations” policy towards the non-combatant role players.
All of these elements are combined with the most sophisticated telemetry and assessment system in the world to make the Fort Polk/JRTC range complete the finest schoolhouse in the world.
The schoolmaster (and commanding general) of this massive enterprise is Major General Michael Sherfield. Himself a career paratrooper, Sherfield has managed to fight the budget battles that have allowed the Fort Polk/JRTC facility to grow and conduct training in areas that previously would have been thoroughly impossible. Some of these include:
• Live Fire Training Range: To the north of the main force-on-force training range at Fort Polk is an all new live-fire training complex. Here, deployed infantry can use virtually every kind of weapon in their arsenal from M16s to 155mm field howitzer firing live high-explosive shells! This is far different from the automated shooting gallery that is the NTC live-fire range. JRTC can simulate almost any kind of open-field combat that the O/C teams can imagine.
• Military Operations on Urbanized Terrain (MOUT) Training Facility: Several years ago, there was a large- scale firefight in Mogadishu between U.S. Rangers and the militia army of the late General Aidid. Frankly, the results stank from our point of view. Over ninety Americans were wounded or killed, along with the loss of two UH-60 Blackhawk helicopters. To help better prepare U.S. Forces for such combat, the JRTC has built a brand-new, $70- million MOUT facility that allows for both force-on-force as well as live-fire training in an urban setting. Resembling a small town, the MOUT facility uses state-of-the-art visual effects (some borrowed from Hollywood) to provide an impressive array of visual and aural feedback for the trainees. Perhaps the most impressive is that when a particular building (being used as an OPFOR armory) gets hit by certain types of munitions (like rockets or grenades), the whole building can be set to explode on command! The recognized importance of providing extensive training for infantrymen in urban settings was evidenced by the construction of a multi-million-dollar complex made up of an airfield take-down facility, a military compound, and an urban city at the JRTC. In honor of two brave and valiant infantrymen who lost their lives in Mogadishu, Somalia, the JRTC staff named the main city complex after SFC Randall D. Shughart and MSG Gary I. Gordon.
Let me tell you, this place is impressive! Beyond these things, JRTC generally does resemble the NTC in that units rotate in for several weeks at a time for the large force-on-force phase of training, as well as a week or so of preliminary live-fire training. Normally, the main deployment lasts eleven days from start to finish, with several days on both ends set aside for planning, debriefing, cleaning up the training area or “box,” and making sure that everything out in the bottomlands is safe for the critters![54]
Normally, the Army tries to get every light infantry brigade in service through a JRTC rotation every eighteen months. In 1996 JRTC rotation, the 1st Brigade would actually conduct its deployment in two phases. The first, which would begin in early October, would have several companies going in for an extensive regimen of live-fire training. Then, starting on October 12th, 1996, the other two battalions of the brigade would drop into the force-
