The day after we returned from Leaders Forge we spent the entire day, from 0600-2000 cleaning weapons and then repeated the process the next day. I have not been in the Army very long but I do not think that making your company clean weapons for 28 hours is taking care of soldiers that have been in the field for 10 days, but again I am new. After the overkill cleaning we were finally given a break. The next week was a series of briefs and classes.
Graduation was low key, short and sweet just the way I like it. It was nice to get the coveted blue cord, I finally felt like I had accomplished something in the Army. I was also able to get myself onto the Commandants list even though I managed to do poorly on some quiz's.
IBOLC was a great course, I learned so much from the cadre and my peers. After spending a little time at Darby (Ranger School), I believe that it is IBOLC that is the premiere leadership school in the Army.
Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Week 14 & 15- Leaders Forge
The culmination of all our training and hard work went into the 10 day FTX they branded Leader Forge. This is the "light at the end of the tunnel" and up to this point about half of the platoon still needs graded patrols. Like most of the course the weather was not cooperating, the heat index was in the 100's each day and after loosing 13 guys to heat casualty again, we moved to reverse ops (missions at night and sleeping during the day).
The kickoff event to the exercise was the platoon live fire exercise. This was a realistic platoon sized assault on a bunker, with an elevated support by fire and an enemy counter attack. This was one of the best training days of the cycle because it was real and a real life scenario that we could relate to. The cadre dedicate hours of training for the event before we event step onto the range for the dry run. After a few re-cocks and the blank fire validation, oh yeah and an incident with an unexploded 60mm mortar round, we were ready. My squad was tasked to clear the trench and I got to be the first one in the trench so I was extremely excited, finally real trigger time. Like anything else the exercise didn't go according to plan. Although we were the first squad and fire team in the trench, we were only supposed to clear until we were stretched too thin to continue. Upon reaching the berm before the trench, one of our squad members was pulled off the course for a safety violation, so our already undermanned squad was down one more. The PL at the time then instructed us to clear the entire trench system by ourselves, so myself and 2 others cleared a large trench without support. I was lead on every turn so I got to make almost every shot, it was the coolest thing I did in IBOLC. After clearing the trench we exited the back and were hit by an enemy counter attack, our security squad made short work of the targets and our platoon successfully complete the live fire with just a few hick ups.
Due to the extreme heat and losing 1 or 2 guys per mission we began operating at night. This was the first time that the leadership was given the full reigns and the freedom to develop their own course of action. The missions were now more elaborate and the intelligence collected built the next mission, it made things more interesting. Almost everyone who stepped into a leadership role ended up getting the mission completed, some need a little help from their supporting leadership, but thats what it is all about. The platoon was operating with 2 rifle squads with a weapons squads and the HQ's element. The PL had the option to select their RTO and sometimes their PSG for the mission. During our 5 days of patrols and about 20 leadership positions, I was PSG for 8, RTO for 6 and Weapons Squad Leader for 1 mission, I was exhausted by the last mission. The opportunity to be in leadership that much taught me so much about platoon level operations and also how to motivate people when they are tired. We did not only learn doctrine, instead our cadre and prior service students taught us their unit SOP's that made more sense and worked better than the cut and dry standard.
Leaders Forge was very demanding on your body, conduction missions 24hours a day and getting only 2 hours of sleep at the most. The basic load was about 65lbs, that is if you were not carrying squad equipment which only leadership did not, if you were on the weapons squad your load could be 115lbs. During the 10 days in the field I lost 10lbs and some lost more. It was a good assessment and preparation for ranger school. As hard as the week was it brought the platoon closer together and by the end we were well meshed and working great together.
The kickoff event to the exercise was the platoon live fire exercise. This was a realistic platoon sized assault on a bunker, with an elevated support by fire and an enemy counter attack. This was one of the best training days of the cycle because it was real and a real life scenario that we could relate to. The cadre dedicate hours of training for the event before we event step onto the range for the dry run. After a few re-cocks and the blank fire validation, oh yeah and an incident with an unexploded 60mm mortar round, we were ready. My squad was tasked to clear the trench and I got to be the first one in the trench so I was extremely excited, finally real trigger time. Like anything else the exercise didn't go according to plan. Although we were the first squad and fire team in the trench, we were only supposed to clear until we were stretched too thin to continue. Upon reaching the berm before the trench, one of our squad members was pulled off the course for a safety violation, so our already undermanned squad was down one more. The PL at the time then instructed us to clear the entire trench system by ourselves, so myself and 2 others cleared a large trench without support. I was lead on every turn so I got to make almost every shot, it was the coolest thing I did in IBOLC. After clearing the trench we exited the back and were hit by an enemy counter attack, our security squad made short work of the targets and our platoon successfully complete the live fire with just a few hick ups.
Due to the extreme heat and losing 1 or 2 guys per mission we began operating at night. This was the first time that the leadership was given the full reigns and the freedom to develop their own course of action. The missions were now more elaborate and the intelligence collected built the next mission, it made things more interesting. Almost everyone who stepped into a leadership role ended up getting the mission completed, some need a little help from their supporting leadership, but thats what it is all about. The platoon was operating with 2 rifle squads with a weapons squads and the HQ's element. The PL had the option to select their RTO and sometimes their PSG for the mission. During our 5 days of patrols and about 20 leadership positions, I was PSG for 8, RTO for 6 and Weapons Squad Leader for 1 mission, I was exhausted by the last mission. The opportunity to be in leadership that much taught me so much about platoon level operations and also how to motivate people when they are tired. We did not only learn doctrine, instead our cadre and prior service students taught us their unit SOP's that made more sense and worked better than the cut and dry standard.
Leaders Forge was very demanding on your body, conduction missions 24hours a day and getting only 2 hours of sleep at the most. The basic load was about 65lbs, that is if you were not carrying squad equipment which only leadership did not, if you were on the weapons squad your load could be 115lbs. During the 10 days in the field I lost 10lbs and some lost more. It was a good assessment and preparation for ranger school. As hard as the week was it brought the platoon closer together and by the end we were well meshed and working great together.
Friday, October 14, 2011
Week 13- COIN Operation
All tactics can be implemented in some form or fashion in today's battlefield, but the Counter Insurgency approach is the policy to this war. I had only read about the system and had not really herd an in depth discussion about it. The best tool was our Platoon Tac, who was assigned to a major city right out of Ranger school, and his duties were to be a mayor, economist, contractor for projects and their protector. It was great getting first hand account of what programs and approaches worked for him.
Mon- Stability and Coin Operations with a really good intelligence brief.
Tue-Tactics on employing COIN in stability, offensive and defensive postures.
Wed- Intel driven operations. This was very interesting and insightful. As a PL you do not have significant impact on the large picture, unless you gather good intel from your area that can later be used to support an operation.
Thursday- OPORD's ...... Enough said
Friday- 12 Mile Ruck March. This was a little more difficult than anticipated, at 0400 it was 104 degree heat index and the humidity was so bad it felt like a sauna.
Mon- Stability and Coin Operations with a really good intelligence brief.
Tue-Tactics on employing COIN in stability, offensive and defensive postures.
Wed- Intel driven operations. This was very interesting and insightful. As a PL you do not have significant impact on the large picture, unless you gather good intel from your area that can later be used to support an operation.
Thursday- OPORD's ...... Enough said
Friday- 12 Mile Ruck March. This was a little more difficult than anticipated, at 0400 it was 104 degree heat index and the humidity was so bad it felt like a sauna.
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