Monday, September 25, 2017

Muscatatuck

My last post was about the sorry state of affairs regarding the surface Navy, with a particular focus on the non-existent training of new surface warfare officers.  This post is about a bright spot in training.  Last week, I went to the Muscatatuck Urban Training Center to train another group of civilians who are headed to Afghanistan for a year.  (Muscatatuck, by the way, is pronounced "mus-CAT-a-tuck").  This is something I've been very fortunate to be involved with since my return from Kandahar five years ago.  I've written about this training several times and you can click on the "Muscatatuck" label on the right for photos of the place and comments about previous classes.

There was an interesting twist to this group of students.  Of the seven in my group, two are heading out to support our goals in Syria.  They won't spend their entire tours in Syria; rather, they'll be based in one of the neighboring countries and will go into Syria when and as needed.  Both of these individuals have tremendous experience.  Both were a lot of fun to work with as well.  Neither came in with the attitude of "I've been there, you don't have anything to tell me" - no, they came to learn.

One of the key things that I try to stress with students is working as a team.  No single member has all the answers, and success in each of these training scenarios requires all the team members to be present, in the game, and ready to jump in with the appropriate question, answer, or suggestion at any moment.  The Lone Rangers will fail downrange.  Fortunately, with this group, there were no super egos.  Everybody pulled together.  The two with the most experience did something even better: they deliberately played supporting roles, rather than leading roles.  This gave the students with less real-world experience the chance to be the team leaders.  As one who was in that situation six years ago, learning by doing is the best way to internalize the lessons.

So my team did a super job.  The mistakes that were made were due to breakdowns in communication by those outside the team, and they learned from the experiences.  The last scenario is the most complex of all and the young lady serving as team leader was the quietest and most reserved of the group.  But she knocked it out of the park.  I couldn't have been more proud.

So to those who complain about "government bureacrats" being lazy, I say stuff it.  You haven't seen them do what I've seen them do.  And to those seven who are, as I write this, on their way to war zones, I say well done, work hard, and come home safe!

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