Over the last week, we’ve had a series of exercises and classes about all hazards in country: from
camel spiders to suicide bombers. I had never heard of camel spiders, but the wikipedia entry shows them the size of a ping-pong paddle. They can be about lobster size! Search it on YouTube and the most popular videos are from soldiers in Iraq.
The Army has a program for senior NCOs to stay active-duty for 1-2 years after their deployment, ensuring they impart us newbees with their recently gained wisdom. They have also brought on Arabic-speaking actors, built a small Iraqi village, and run us through scenario-based training for manning the base ECP- Entry Control Point; manning a QRF– Quick Reaction Force; defeating IEDs – Improvised Explosive Devices; conducting presence patrols (connecting with the locals, no acronym for that one!); convoy operations; and an additional day at the range focused on SRM – Short Range Marksmanship. We’re combining it all together today, with a live-fire from our HMMWV convoy (HMMWV is the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle, the Hummer. It’s more accurately called the M1151 because we’re using the new up-armored HMMWV’s). Live-fire means we’re using real bullets for our gunners. Tomorrow, we switch back to blanks and run through the convoy STX – Situational Training Exercises. That’s our culminating exercise where we put it all together, interact once again with both friendly and hostile Arabic-speaking civilians, and wrap this Ft Lewis training up.
The Army has a fantastic culture of continuous improvement: after every training event (or real missions), we conduct an AAR– After Action Review. Our emphasis is on “no thin skins” – every voice is equal, and no hurt feelings. It’s about saving lives and improving our mission performance. Organizationally, the Army has a better reputation for this among our sister services in the Navy and Air Force, so hopefully it catches on elsewhere. Certainly in the software-development world,
our company has practiced close-out meetings as a required step of each project , or along each milestone for larger projects. No thin-skins, what went well and what ideas for improvement do we have, from the junior to the senior staff, everyone has equal input. Among process development and process improvement quality models, this is always a key component: who else knows better on how to improve than the folks who just did it? Moreover, the best ideas often come from the bottom. What better way to give junior soldiers or staff a real feeling of belonging as they make a positive contribution to the unit?
