Success in Partnership

Abstract

For any route clearance company or maneuver unit that will partner with a foreign army unit, we offer our strategy and lessons learned, build a relationship of trust, create consistency, and demand progress toward self-sufficiency. This article describes how A Company, 4th Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division, built on these pillars to form what was called the most successful partnership in Afghanistan. The roads in Paktika Province are mostly unpaved, unimproved, and laden with improvised explosive devices (IEDs). These devices serve as a powerful deterrent to travel by military vehicles. This explains the need for route clearance packages, specially equipped combat engineer platoons trained to find and neutralize these explosive obstacles. After 5 months of route clearance operations in Paktika, our company mission changed to one of partnership. The primary task was to train the route clearance company (RCC) of the 2d Brigade, 203d Corps of the Afghan National Army (ANA). With little more information than an address in Kabul where By Captain Mark D. Gillman the ANA unit basic course was underway and the simple guidance to train the ANA, we began our preparations. We first conducted a leader s reconnaissance that included the commander, first sergeant, squad leaders from our two route clearance packages, and an interpreter. We visited the soldiers of the RCC two weeks before their graduation, observed their training, met with their commander, inspected their equipment, and quizzed the contracted trainers on their curriculum. We learned that there is already a decent draft field manual (also available in the Dari language) that describes the training methodology, task organization, equipment, and primary duties of an RCC. It provides the trainers, partners, and ANA leaders a common understanding of what to expect.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Apr 01, 2012
Accession Number
ADA560273

Entities

People

  • Mark D. Gillman

Organizations

  • United States Army Engineer School

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Biomedical
  • Human Systems
  • Weapons Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Afghanistan
  • Clearances
  • Consistency
  • Engineers
  • Explosive Devices
  • Explosive Ordnance Disposal
  • Explosives
  • Improvised Explosive Devices
  • Lessons Learned
  • Maintenance
  • Metal Detectors
  • Military Vehicles
  • Shortages (Logistics)
  • Training
  • Vehicles
  • Warfare
  • Weapons

Readers

  • Aerospace Test and Evaluation
  • Military Science
  • Military and Counterinsurgency Studies.