Should Navy, Air Force provide ground combat training?

[thedrifter]

Should Navy, Air Force provide ground combat training?
By Rick Maze - rmaze@militarytimes.com
Posted : June 11, 2007

The House Armed Services Committee does not want the Navy and Air Force to reinvent ground combat training to prepare their people for deployments to Iraq.

“The committee is very concerned about the creep of nontraditional missions, such as ground combat skills, into the Navy and Air Force and the resulting potential weakening of those services’ core competency skills,” the committee says in its report accompanying the 2008 defense authorization bill.

The report notes that sailors and airmen are being asked to deploy to Iraq and Afghanistan for missions that historically have belonged to ground combat troops, such as driving trucks, protecting convoys and providing base security. These assignments could diminish with the manpower increases in the Army and Marine Corps included in the 2008 budget, the committee says.

The House and Senate versions of the defense policy bill would add 36,000 soldiers and 9,000 Marines above the Bush administration’s budget request, which had assumed increases of 7,000 people for the Army and 5,000 for the Marine Corps.

“The committee remains concerned that the budget request for the active components of the Army and the Marine Corps is too low for the current requirements placed on those services by the national security strategy,” the report says.

For the Navy and Air Force to help out in a pinch is fine, the committee says, as long as the help is considered temporary.

“The committee is hopeful that efforts by the Army and Marine Corps to increase their end strength permanently will help alleviate the pressure to use Navy and Air Force personnel in these ways,” the report says.
Training already available

In the meantime, if the Navy and Air Force need ground combat training, they could use courses offered by the Army and Marine Corps rather than creating their own, the report says.

“Jointness dictates that the services operate within their core competencies and seek the expertise of the service whose skills lie in a particular competency,” the report says. “While training of sailors and airmen in ground combat skills may be a necessity given current combat operations, the committee believes it should be treated as an exception rather than a reason to establish permanent training.”

But permanent training is exactly what the Navy and Air Force have been considering. The Air Force already has a combat training course for airmen at an Army base in Texas, Camp Anderson-Peters. The base, formerly known as Camp Bullis, was named for two airmen killed in Iraq while doing convoy security.

By 2010, this could become a 20-day class in combat medical skills, land navigation, tactical field operations, self-defense and physical fitness, the report says, noting that the Air Force is looking for a permanent home for the course.

The Navy is planning its own eight-week course for all sailors assigned to the Navy Expeditionary Combat Command that will focus on movement, shooting, communicating and first aid. The report said the Navy is planning to set up East Coast and West Coast training courses.

Ellie

[Zulu 36]

Long overdue, especially for the Air Force.

While I was in the Air Guard, the prevailing attitude among most AF people was they were working for a large airline that happened to carry bombs sometimes.
Ground combat was something the Neanderthals in security police, Army, or Marines did. They were technicians, not grunts.

[10thzodiac]

As an employee I would oppose cross training, but as an employer I'd demand it.

Wouldn't that be cool, if there was cross training between the services ?

Talking about FUBAR

[mrbsox]

Wouldn't that be cool, if there was cross training between the services ?

Talking about FUBAR

Marines in Beret's, Air-dales in spit shine ??? (shudder at the thought)

But GCT may not be a bad idea for SOME, especially pilots flying air support. Marines pilots spend time in ground units just so they know what they are flying into. So they know what the grunts NEED their strike to accomplish. So they are famalier with combat formations, vehicles, etc.

I return your thoughts to An Nasariah in March 2003, when an Air Force A10 straffed an AAV with 30mm, thinking it was Iraqi armour. Had he been trained in GROUND TACTICS with GROUND EQUIPMENT he'd have know the difference, from the air.

[Zulu 36]

As an employee I would oppose cross training, but as an employer I'd demand it.

Wouldn't that be cool, if there was cross training between the services ?

Talking about FUBAR

But you're thinking as a skilled trades union man.

In police work, even union shops, cross-training is normal and demanded by employees, particularly if lateral transfers are desired (and eventual promotions). My old department was unionized all the way up to the deputy chief and anyone with more than a year or so on the department had been cross-trained into at least one other police skill besides basic patrol officer.

All of the military branches should be much the same as it is in the Marine Corps - everyone should have basic infantry skills. In the Air Guard, those of us in security police viewed the majority of the technicians as worth nothing more than 150-pound sandbags if the shi*t hit the fan.

[10thzodiac]

On second thought, I don't think I'd really like chipping paint on some old rust bucket (navy), wing wiping (air-force) or trying to figure out if I just saluted a private or general (army).

Maybe the Secret Underground Balloon Corps ?

When we asked dad, "What did you do in the army", he'd always tell us he was in the Secret Underground Balloon Corps.