Marines sharpen skills they will soon teach Afghan Army

[thedrifter]

CENTRAL TRAINING AREA, Okinawa (Dec 1, 2006) -- More than a dozen III Marine Expeditionary Force members, who will soon mentor and train Afghan National Army troops prepared for their mission during demolitions training in the Central Training Area Nov. 15.


The Marines and sailors of Afghan National Army Embedded Trainer Team 4-1, the first team to come out of Okinawa, will spend several months in Afghanistan teaching a battalion-sized Afghan National Army unit military skills involving communications, motorized transportation and general engineering to help the force move closer to self sustainment and stability.


Team members consist of hand-picked, highly-experienced individuals and volunteers from various military occupational specialties such as combat engineers and motorized transportation. The variety of occupational specialties will provide the ANA with advice on all aspects of building and training its fighting force.


"It has become an important mission to get our allied forces in Afghanistan and Iraq properly trained," said 1st Lt. Mac T. Steele, a team leader. "It will further affirm democracy in Afghanistan and additionally lessen the burden on us."


The team's most recent training started with a refresher on handling and detonating explosives and then focused on live ordnance including land mines and C-4 plastic explosive.


One point of emphasis was how to destroy weapons caches and mines, a useful skill to augment efforts of explosive ordnance disposal units in a country riddled with mines from the war between Afghanistan and the Soviet Union in the 1980s.


The team also focused on setting and firing claymore mines _- anti-personnel mines that propel hundreds of small ball bearings forward in a fan-like shape and are often used in defensive perimeters.


"This training helps us train Afghan soldiers to set up defensive perimeters, adding to the building block process of creating and training a self-sustaining Afghan National Army," said Capt. Monty J. Fontenot, the deputy officer-in-charge and a team leader with the unit.


In a speech Sept. 29 at a Washington, D.C. hotel, President George W. Bush said of Afghanistan, "We helped them build security forces they need to defend their democratic gains. In the past five years, our coalition has trained and equipped more than 30,000 soldiers in the Afghan National Army. These Afghan soldiers are on the front lines with coalition troops."


Embedded Trainer Team 4-1 will further contribute to the growing number of trained Afghan National Army soldiers.

Ellie