ebook img

More on Navy Firearms training PDF

6 Pages·2021·0.17 MB·English
by  
Save to my drive
Quick download
Download
Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.

Preview More on Navy Firearms training

Sailor's tough duty: the terror watch By MATTHEW DOLAN, The Virginian-Pilot © December 15, 2002 NORFOLK -- It looked like a routine vehicle check until the passenger started screaming. ``If I release this button, we all die!'' But petty officers Benjamin Singleton and Ray Sminkey never fired a shot as the terrorists sped past them, down the pier and toward their cruiser, the Cape St. George. Seconds later the ship was consumed by an orange fireball. ``That guy just killed 380 of your people and blew up a billion- Fire or not? For the Navy sentry in a virtual-reality simulator, two would-be bombers at his ship's pier present a horrifying deilemma. Photo by Martin Smith-Rodden / The Virginian-Pilot. dollar ship!'' instructor Chief Petty Officer Boyd Hensley bellowed. ``Did anyone ever tell you you might die on watch?'' Singleton, a 36-year-old ship storekeeper, shook his head sheepishly. ``When you actually see it, well. . .'' he said, his voice trailing off. Welcome to the intense, and often alarming, world of force-protection training. Navy leaders believe thousands of sailors like Singleton and Sminkey must learn how to protect their ships and shipmates at home and at sea from terrorist threats. But two years after the deadly bombing of the destroyer Cole, few have completed the series of new courses, worrying some who see the training as long overdue. No longer confined to the most elite units in the service, like the SEALs, force-protection training has also been a struggle for many sailors who don't feel at ease with hand-held weapons and close-quarters combat. Rear Adm. Thomas W. Steffens, who was pulled out of retirement after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said the Navy has been scrambling to meet its new priorities. ``In the wake of 9/11, we pulled people from all walks of life in the Navy and gave them a few weeks of training as a security force and plugged them into the breach,'' said Steffens, special assistant to the Atlantic Fleet commander for force protection. ``Every morning, they come in bright and early. They get issued weapons and bullets. They get some guidance on the latest terrorist information. They go stand their post or man their boats. ``This is not a typical day for most of our sailors.'' HIGH-TECH TRAINING Singleton and Sminkey ran through the force-protection gantlet inside a new simulator housed in a mobile trailer on a Norfolk Naval Station pier. Known as PRISim, the $300,000 system projects mock terrorists on a large video screen. Plastic bullets even fire back at sentries from the trailer's carpeted walls. Sailors training at PRISim and at a privately run center in northeastern North Carolina praise these scenarios as frighteningly authentic. ``If it were up to me, this would be the No. 1 training'' for sailors, said Petty Officer 1st Class Keith Rivers, 33, catching his breath after fending off a mock takeover of a ship during an exercise at the Blackwater Training Center in Moyock. Email this Page Print this Page Newsletter Sign-up Get Wireless Pilot Subscriptions Rivers and others said the true-to-life training serves as a wake-up call, improving how they might react to future threats in ports and at sea. ``The message that we want everyone to understand is that force protection is everyone's business,'' Steffens said. It's a message the military has heard for years. Anti-terrorism and force- protection training ``must be elevated to the same priority as primary mission training,'' according to the Cole Commission report issued after the October 2000 bombing of the Norfolk-based destroyer in Yemen. Seventeen sailors died in that attack. But it wasn't until the Sept. 11 attacks that the Navy upped the ante with a two-week, armed-sentry course for thousands of regular sailors. They have become the Navy's auxiliary security force, a stopgap measure until the service can train enough full-time security personnel by 2005. More than 2,100 sailors attended the armed-sentry course last year. Next year, almost 5,000 sailors are expected to participate. A more-advanced course on force protection also is growing, with 6,000 sailors to be trained by next year. Training is not restricted to the most junior sailors. Five-hundred senior officers have completed a course on mapping out and implementing force-protection plans. In addition to training sailors, the Navy is expanding its full-time security force, known as masters-at-arms, from 1,500 to 9,000 members by 2005. This cadre of military law-enforcement personnel will protect ships, shore facilities, sailors and Marines. Altogether, the Navy plans to spend $2.9 billion this fiscal year -- $1 billion more than last year -- on personnel, equipment and training related to force protection. The most recent advancement has come this year with high-tech simulators and run-and-shoot camps operated by private contractors. Virtual-reality trainers like the PRISim have ``forced us to train our people harder,'' said Capt. Timothy P. Sprague, the commodore of a new Atlantic Fleet mobile security force to safeguard ships making port visits here and abroad. ``We run every guy through that PRISim van and we evaluate them individually on maturity level, making the right decisions, voice commands, weapons use,'' said Sprague, whose teams largely consist of masters-at-arms. Dave Philips, a former Chesapeake police officer who oversees the Navy's five-year, $35 million contract for Blackwater, said instructors are shocked that some sailors they teach ``have never held a firearm, except for at boot camp.'' The goal -- running thousands of sailors through at least part of such programs before their next deployment -- remains elusive. Sailors aboard the carrier Harry S. Truman, for example, deployed from Norfolk earlier this month without setting foot inside the PRISim trainer or the Blackwater center, a sprawling site also used to train military special forces, SWAT and other law-enforcement tactical teams. While the Truman officers said their sailors received other training, they also said their crew of 5,500 would have benefited from time in the simulator. A CULTURAL SHIFT Despite a backlog of requests to use such facilities, senior officers insist that the Navy is not deploying ill-equipped sailors. Marine Col. Paul Cahill, deputy director of the Navy's Anti-Terrorism Warfare Development Center, called the new courses ``icing on the cake.'' ``I don't think it's fair to say that they're not meeting core requirements,'' said Cahill, whose center is headquartered at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base in Virginia Beach. ``There are only a handful of courses right now.'' Capt. Bill Daniels, director of the anti-terrorism warfare center, conceded that ``in some cases, we are playing catch-up.'' Daniels said restrictions on when sailors are available for outside training can be a problem. The 18 months before a ship deploys are filled with numerous other training requirements. Mastering the skills needed for force protection also marks a cultural shift for the average sailor. Starting in boot camp, the emphasis is on firefighting. The idea, officials say, is to ensure that crews can contain damage and maintain combat readiness. ``In their firefighting training, they see real smoke,'' said Hensley, who works for the Navy's Afloat Training Group. Some instructors say that all sailors should experience that same type of trial by fire when learning how to safeguard against terrorist threats. ``No one has put them in this kind of stressful situation before,'' Hensley said. Not all of the sailors immediately understand why the training is necessary. ``So what we were supposed to do?'' Seaman Darnell Kirkland asked after he and his partner failed to discover a gun on a woman they were searching during a Blackwater exercise. ``She's a civilian,'' said Kirkland, who has been in the Navy six months. ``I wasn't going to treat her like she was a criminal.'' In another exercise, sailors in the armed-sentry course took their places around a small wooden house. Instructors told trainees to treat the house as an entry point to a naval base. But the sailors struggled. A woman dressed in a miniskirt, high heels and a long leather coat approached. One young sailor was so timid that he barely touched Blackwater employee Sherry Whitehurst when searching her. His instructor quickly pointed out what can happen. ``We have a knife, we have a bomb, we have a gun and we have a box cutter,'' said Gary Flannelly, pointing out all of the items Whitehurst had hidden in her tight clothing. Instructors said it's little surprise that most sailors don't know how and when to use deadly force. ``When things go bad, they really go bad. And they really go bad quickly,'' Philips said. Still, Philips said 90 percent of the sailors attending the Blackwater force- protection course pass the basic qualifications. Hensley said most trainees fail to use deadly force in the simulator, despite attending a briefing on its proper application. ``It's not their fault,'' he said. ``We've never trained them this way.'' ``IT'S A MATTER OF HONOR'' On a recent day pierside along the Cape St. George, Hensley conducted his sessions with the brio of a fire-and-brimstone preacher. ``Get back! Get back! Drop that gun now!'' he yelled, showing the sailors how to deal with a man who claims to be a contractor but pulls a firearm from his toolbox. He then addressed their fears and worries about potential discipline if they flash their weapons. `` `I wanted you to justify what you did,' they'll say. `You felt threatened, so you shot him?' '' Hensley asked Petty Officer 2nd Class Sminkey, 23, whether he saw a weapon on the contractor. ``Not until he picked it up and started shooting.'' ``If you did it right,'' Hensley said, ``he would have given up and it would not have ended with shooting.'' Instructors said simple and loud commands can help defuse an innocent, but potentially deadly, situation. ``You guys watch `COPS'? Do people do what the cops tell them to do?'' said Chief Petty Officer Randy Lester, another instructor inside the trainer. ``You're trying to break through the adrenaline haze.'' After Sminkey and Petty Officer 1st Class Singleton successfully stop another car in a different scenario, Hensley praised their restraint. A passenger popped up from sleeping in the back seat of a car and reached for something -- a cell phone, not a weapon -- inside his jacket. ``It could be the captain or his brother,'' Hensley said. ``I'm not trying to make you a killer in here. I'm not trying to make you into a gunslinger. ``Threat or no threat? That's the question that has to keep rolling around in your mind.'' Of the 1,300 sailors who have been through the bomb scenario, only 44 stopped the car. In those cases, the sentries were killed in the explosion, but the ship was saved. ``That's not good odds,'' Hensley said. ``How do you sleep at night knowing that?'' But then he reminded them of their duty. ``It's a matter of honor. `No one gets by me.' '' Hensley said. `` `I own this base and no one gets by me. This is my post.' ``You should wonder: `How many watches have I stood and been unprepared?' '' Reach Matthew Dolan at

See more

The list of books you might like

Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.