A Year In The Life Of A USAR MP Company - combat-support military police company

Military Police, May, 2000 by Clifford F. Jr. Buttram

303d Military Company (CS)

This article focuses on the combat-support military police company, the core unit for the Military Police Corps. However, the highlight of this article is the 303d MP Company (CS) in Jackson, Michigan. The importance of USAR MP units is clear when reviewing the training year of FY 99 for the 303d MP Company. As with any active component (AC) unit, commitment, preparation and, above all, leadership determine the success or failure of any unit in attaining mission accomplishment. The article will give you an indicator of the capability and proficiency of our USAR MP soldiers.

Jackson is a picturesque city of 35,000 in south central Michigan. An hour and a half west of Detroit and an hour south of the state capital, Lansing, Jackson is bona fide middle America. The primary employer, a state penitentiary, provides an economic boost to the local populace. However, the 303rd MP Company, the only USAR MP unit in Michigan, provides an added and beneficial patriotic boost to its citizens. A majority of the soldiers in the 303d live within 50 miles of the unit, but a few live within the city limits of Jackson. For all these soldiers, FY 99 proved to be a trying, stressful, and sometimes emotional year.

1st Qtr, FY 99

On 30 September 98, CPT Eric C. Engelmeier was the 783d MP Battalion S1. Content in this position, his plan was to complete CAS3 in FY 99 and prepare himself for the FY 00 Major board. Having already commanded the HHC of the 300th MP Command, he could concentrate his efforts on improving his S1 section. However, on 1 October 98, CPT Engelmeier was assigned as the Company Commander for the unsteady 303d MP Company. The unit was in a dire situation; a leadership change had become absolutely necessary. The battalion commander at that time made the change and CPT Engelmeier's plans were immediately placed on hold. His first order of business was to review his yearly training calendar (YTC). The major training event for any USAR unit is annual training (AT), which usually occurs in the summer months after a culmination of individual drill training (IDT) assemblies.

In September 98, the 303d AT mission was to attend Eastern Castle (June-August 99), a customs mission in the Sinai, as a full company deploying over ten rotations of two weeks each. However, this mission was scrubbed in the eleventh hour because of funding problems. Early in the first quarter, the 303d was then given the AT mission of providing convoy security for a rotating brigade at the NTC. Not exactly combat-support material, but at least every platoon would get a chance to practice mobilization, deployment, completing a mission, and redeployment. CPT Engelmeier's efforts now focused on planning and executing this critical mission. Rearrangement of his YTC and training schedules took priority, but ensuring that his soldiers notified their civilian employers was just as important. Now that he had a solid AT mission, CPT Engelmeier was ready to move forward.

While working the training issues of the unit, CPT Engelmeier and his First Sergeant, Kenneth Beasley, had to concentrate just as much effort on meeting the minimum readiness standards set by the United Stated Army Reserve Command (USARC), our Regional Support Command (88th RSC) in Minneapolis, and our Major Support Command (300th MP CMD/MSC). The 303d was wallowing in the "Big 5" statistics, which ultimately can determine the very existence of a USAR unit: assigned strength, duty military occupational specialty qualification (DMOSQ), retention, IDT attendance, and potential nonparticipants (PNP). Although the 303d was meeting some of the requirements, it was not meeting the most critical, DMOSQ. You cannot function as a combat-support Military Police company if one-third of the required 95Bs are not qualified or even assigned. The good news was that the company had several soldiers enrolled in the TASS BN 95B10 school, but they would not graduate until June 99. The goal was to enroll as many qualified personnel into the 95B10 school in the next two fiscal years in order to meet and then exceed the standards. Toward the end of the quarter, the unit participated in a battalion map exercise which involved the company commander, his platoon leaders and platoon sergeants, and his operations sergeant. The beginning of 1999 brought promise of unit cohesiveness, mission focus, and some esprit de corps. However, a well-placed Mark-19 round hit the unit in January 1999.

2nd Qtr, FY 99

For the USAR, the unit status report (USR) is a quarterly exercise in stress management. A report card of your unit for three months, the USR provides the MSC, RSC, and USARC commanders a snapshot of unit readiness with a specific focus of positive or negative trends in the Big 5. Consequently, the USR can bring about a significant emotional and/or mental event to a company commander. CPT Engelmeier was about to be blindsided. The 303rd submitted a USR which indicated a functioning unit but did not accurately forecast current and future personnel losses. Once recomputed, the 303rd was still broken by the Big 5 standards and questions began to surface, specifically from the 300th MP CMD Commander, BG Dennis Laich. CPT Engelmeier, his first sergeant, and the battalion commander and CSM had to answer a myriad of questions: What is your plan to fix your unit? When, specifically, will you meet the RSC standards? How will you achieve this? Who will be responsible for initiating and monitoring your readiness status? Where will you be in three, six, nine months from now? Why did we not foresee this problem? By the end of the meeting, a fix plan with a specified date to "get well" was required for submittal to the commanding general. It was 15 January 1999, and the year was not off to a good start. However, they still had to get through the remainder of the month.