Coming soon to a theater of operations: Troops who use storytelling and role-play to defeat roadside bombs.
Improvised explosive devices are the number one killer of U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and the Pentagon has bought into one company’s idea of using elements associated with Hollywood to train soldiers before deployment.
As part of a new interactive program, military forces will play the part of insurgents and try to carry out simulated attacks on their colleagues. The exercises will take place in tractor-trailer containers outfitted by Virginia’s A-T Solutions with help from subcontractor Isolated Ground, a California-based construction company that specializes in building film sets.
A-T Solutions has been awarded an $8.9 million Navy contract to support the Joint IED Defeat Organization with the mobile training facilities. The company also will provide units to the Army and Marine Corps, said CEO Dennis Kelly.
The program takes students through four phases. In the first, they are confronted by an actor playing the role of a terrorist who describes how he plans to kill them. Next they enter a bomb maker’s lair in an attempt to start thinking like an insurgent. The third provides area-specific intelligence on how to defeat the threat. Finally, students must use what they’ve learned to prevent attacks planned by those who have already received the training.
Prototypes of the program have been used to train 15,000 soldiers.
During one session, a trainee became emotional when he learned that the round copper disks he let through a checkpoint during a previous tour of Iraq are commonly used in homemade bombs, Kelly said. The man with the copper told the soldier he planned to make wind chimes.
“It’s all about awareness,” Kelly said.