Guard soldiers military police skills

Military Police, Oct, 2004 by Robert Haskell

Nearly 20l) Army National Guard (ARNG) artillery soldiers from Tennessee became the new sheriffs in town as they joined Active Army military police forces a long way from their homes. These citizen-soldiers from Tennessee's 2d Battalion, 115th Field Artillery, were reclassified as military police alter four weeks of nonstop training at the US Army Military Police School, Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, because the Army needs more military police than artillery troops to help wage the Global War on Terrorism.

That's why the ARNG soldiers from the battalion's Alpha and Charlie Companies in Lexington and Bolivar. Tennessee, left behind their 155-millimeter howitzers to spend the next year or so protecting military families and installations in Germany and Hawaii--replacing active duty military police soldiers who have been sent to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Nearly 1,000 ARNG soldiers from 10 artillery companies out of Missouri, Illinois, Texas, and Tennessee earned their military police crests, which feature the dutiful words "assist, protect, defend," following their training. The Tennessee troops were to begin training on 24 November 2003. Many staff sergeants and sergeants first class spent an additional 17 days in Basic and Advanced Noncommissioned Officer (NCO) Courses so that they could serve as enlisted leaders at the company and battalion levels. Artillery officers also were trained in commanding military police personnel. Soldiers from another eight ARNG companies out of New Jersey, West Virginia, Minnesota, Montana, New Mexico, and Arizona are expected to begin converting to military police soldiers at Fort Leonard Wood beginning in October 2004. The ARNG soldiers are considered "provisional" military police, because they will become artillery soldiers again when their tours of duty are complete. They do not graduate and earn their crests until they learn all five basic functions that most of the Army's new military police learn during eight weeks of advanced individual training--law and order, maneuver and mobility support, area security, police intelligence, and reengineered internment and resettlement of EPWs operations.

These ARNG soldiers trained under the tutelage of 70 US Army Reserve (USAR) soldiers, including 53 trainers from the 2d Battalion, 100th Military Police Regiment, from Nashville, Tennessee, who are part of The Army School System (TASS). In February 2004, the Tennessee USAR unit taught Tennessee ARNG soldiers. The reservists are under the Active Army's 14th Military Police Brigade. About half of the training NCOs are civilian law enforcement officers, and most of them became seasoned military police during the Persian Gulf War or while serving in such places as Panama. Bosnia, and Kosovo.

It is a total-force commitment, because the ARNG includes 33 percent of the Army's Military Police Corps and the USAR has another 23 percent. The commitment has meant a lot of hard work and some eye-opening revelations to some soldiers about all that military police really do. Soldiers train in military operations on urbanized terrain at Fort Leonard Wood's Stem Village, a small town of concrete buildings. There were many surprises for the ARNG soldiers as they learned to handle themselves at a garrison and on a battlefield, which all military police must be ready to do.

The condensed training regimen has paid off. The active duty provost marshals at posts in the United States and Germany who are receiving the ARNG military police say they are more than satisfied. Some ARNG soldiers acknowledged they were not pleased about leaving their big guns to become military police. Most, however, quickly got into the spirit of their new mission because they learned to trust their trainers and they began to feel like military police.

Master Sergeant Haskell is assigned to the National Guard Bureau, Arlington, Virginia.