Tougher work-ups [Archive] - Marine Corps

thedrifter

12-06-05, 12:29 PM

December 12, 2005
New training manual lays out all things infantry
By Gidget Fuentes
Times staff writer

OCEANSIDE, Calif. — So you’re a rifleman who knows how to close with and destroy the enemy. But do you know how to navigate terrain using the Global Positioning System? Or call for fire on an area target? How about writing a five-paragraph order and then debriefing your squad after the mission’s success?

Perhaps you’re a machine gunner. Do you know how to lay a machine gun using the gunner’s rule? Or clear a malfunction on an M240G? How about giving a mission order to your machine-gun squad, or inspecting a machine-gun position?

If not, you now have a detailed checklist, an infantryman’s bible, that lays out all the boxes grunts must check off before they deploy.

The Training and Readiness Manual, signed into effect Sept. 1, is a guide for what the Marine Corps expects from its infantrymen, from the most junior rifleman to the battalion commander.

The manual, designated Navy/Marine Corps Directive 2500.87, is designed to provide consistency in how infantry units train, establish training standards for Marines and units, and assess their performance and readiness based on the accomplishments of task lists.

It’s the latest in a series of manuals established for different ground warfare communities. The Corps crafted the first such manual for tanks in 1995. Now, communities including reconnaissance, ground ordnance maintenance and security forces have them. And more are in the works.

Setting the standards

T&R manuals have been a mainstay in the aviation community since 1976, guiding the instruction and training for aircrew members, mechanics, pilots and aircraft commanders in a “building-block” approach that begins at initial flight training and extends to deploying forces.

“The T&R program is relatively new for the ground side of the house,” said Lt. Col. Gregg Lyon, head of the ground training branch at Training and Education Command at Quantico, Va. “It’s not really ingrained [as in the aviation community]. It’s going to take a while for it to be accepted.”

The new manual uses a “systematic approach to training” so infantry units can plan, train and assess their unit and individual readiness. It uses codes to mark the progression of training, going from individual to fire team — all the way up to the regimental level.

“The T&R Manual is not intended to be an encyclopedia that contains every minute detail of how to accomplish training,” the manual says. “Instead, it seeks to identify the minimum standards that Marines must be able to perform in combat.”

Standardization is the backbone of the manual.

“To be effective, training must be standardized,” TECom’s former commander, Maj. Gen. Thomas Jones, wrote April 18 when he established the infantry T&R program. “There is no reason training for the same mission on the East Coast should differ from training on the West Coast, Okinawa or Hawaii.”

The manual incorporates recent combat-tested lessons in tactics, techniques and procedures, such as operating entry-control points and inspecting for homemade bombs. It includes much feedback from a conference held last spring that brought together seven battalion commanders along with operations chiefs, operations officers, company commanders, “all the way down to platoon sergeants,” Lyon said. “We got a bit of good discussion hashed out.”

However, “it’s pretty much a working document,” he said. “So if things change, we change the T&R manual.”

At the heart of the training program is the mission-essential task list, or METL. Every unit will have detailed tasks that will cover the range of planning and operations, from establishing a combat operation center to conducting a motorized assault and running operations for the remain-behind force.

The METL, which will vary from unit to unit depending on the missions for which they are preparing, forms the basis for training and assessing a unit’s readiness.

Putting it to use

Flexibility is designed into the plan. A battalion that’s preparing for deployment to Afghanistan or Iraq, for example, might plan for mountain warfare training or a desert combined-arms exercise while another battalion slated to deploy as part of a Marine Expeditionary Unit might focus on humanitarian aid, boat operations and security missions. So commanders should adjust training plans as needed for the long or short term.

“We use it. It’s a good piece of gear,” said Lt. Col. David Furness, who is training his men with the Camp Pendleton, Calif.-based 1st Battalion, 1st Marines, for a deployment to Iraq. “But you can have the best manuals in the world. It’s all about the execution of it.”

Since the summer, after 1/1’s leathernecks sharpened their marksmanship and basic skills, Furness scattered his platoons and companies to the winds for training. They jumped into live-fire training during the Weapons and Tactics Instructor course at Yuma, Ariz., and motorized training with soldiers of 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion at Fort Irwin, Calif.

In October, after taking on 80 more new joins from the School of Infantry, the battalion regrouped for combined stability and support operations and combined-arms training at the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center at Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Although the manual is transparent to most leathernecks, to their battalion bosses, it’s the key to enhancing their training plans to ensure they’re on track to be combat-ready.

“If you screw it up … they see that,” Furness said. “But they don’t see all the work it takes to make it happen on time.”

Ellie