# Exported Trg - Running CTC Crses at Bdes (From: Cutting the CF/DND HQ bloat)



## a_majoor (19 Mar 2012)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> A good step is the outsourcing/distributed courses that are being conducted now.



While I can agee in principle, and have seen really good implimentation, it is not in the military side of the house. Places like the Kahn Academy website and MITx produce fabulous interactive and web based instruction (but also benefit from self selection by highly motivated people).

OTOH I have been astonished here at the leadership company by people reporting to the course after the DL portion who simply do not know basic stuff like the principles of instruction (ICEPAC) or verbal support (CREST), and are woefully unprepared to do the actual teaching (the lesson plans I insist they show me for review days before they teach are uniformly a mess; I make them redo them so they actually have something to teach with...).

This is also going to be an issue later on in many of your careers as more and more people receive education and training over the Internet prior to joining the CF. Is the student who received a degree at a brick and mortar institution better educated than someone who did the same courses through MITx? My own opinion is the STEM disciplines need to be taught at "brick and mortars" so you can access special equipment and do lab work, otherwise not.

For military training, some courses should be online for corporals, sergeants, 2Lt's etc to log on on their own time (self selection; find out who the really motivated people are), while others are like the STEM disciplines; you simply can't teach or assess many of the skills and attitudes over the Internet but need human interaction and hands on with real equipment.


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## Infanteer (19 Mar 2012)

I was not referring to home/computer based training, but rather moving courses from the centre of the training universe (Gagetown) and to garrisons where people are based (Edmonton, Pet).


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## daftandbarmy (19 Mar 2012)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> I was not referring to home/computer based training, but rather moving courses from the centre of the training universe (Gagetown) and to garrisons where people are based (Edmonton, Pet).



Burn him, he's a witch! :nod:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UTdDN_MRe64


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## OldSolduer (19 Mar 2012)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> I was not referring to home/computer based training, but rather moving courses from the centre of the training universe (Gagetown) and to garrisons where people are based (Edmonton, Pet).



Blasphemy! sacrilege!


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## vonGarvin (19 Mar 2012)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> A good step is the outsourcing/distributed courses that are being conducted now.





			
				Infanteer said:
			
		

> I was not referring to home/computer based training, but rather moving courses from the centre of the training universe (Gagetown) and to garrisons where people are based (Edmonton, Pet).



I'm on the other end of this, and the moving of courses (aka "Career Courses") from Gagetown to the units is, in my opinion, an error.  A greivous error at that.  Yes, the troops don't have to get on a plane and fly to Gagetown, but what we are seeing is three different versions of the same course, all run at arm's length from the centre of excellence and increasingly interefered with by the local mafia chains of command.   As well, there are some absurdities in the current system.  For example, troops in 2 RCR who are attending a 2 CMBG-run course have to go to Petawawa for it instead of walking across the parade square.  Troops in 2 PPCLI have to go to Edmonton, etc.  And then the ERE folks who are scattered across the country have to go to whereever the course is conducted.  
By concentrating the infantry courses in Gagetown (I'll not speak to the other schools here), there are intangibles that are not on any QS or TP.  This includes the networking at the first "national" course they do (DP 3A) which carries them through their careers.  We already have three armies in Canada, and by devolving the training to "where the troops are" only worsens this.

As stated, the peak is in the summer, but the augmentation bill is not as high as one would think.  Not at the instructor level.  The demo troops (drivers, CP operators,, enemy force, etc), are the level where the augmentation bill is high.  But for "peak" in the summer, the spike is not as severe as it once was.

Consider the Infantry School.  There are a number of courses that run year round.  BMOQ-Land does spike dramatically in the summer, but this is offset by the one exception to the rule re: conducting a course away from Gagetown.  You see, the various Area Training Centres help offset the bill of running all these courses (but still away from the field force, but yes, likely heavily augmented).  But for the other courses, such as the dismouinted platoon commander course, the summer "peak" is offset by internal reallocation of officers and warrant officers from other cells, such as the Urban Operations cell, which conducts its courses "off-season".  
And let's not forget that during the "down time", the officers and warrant officers are actually conducting their other tasks as a centre of excellence, which includes updating publications, reviewing courseware, and other stuff that's about as sexy as watching grass grow.


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## dapaterson (19 Mar 2012)

Any reason why instructors from the Infantry school are glued to Gagetown?  Why can't we send instructors to students instead of students to instructors?  That's one way to maintain the standards.

There is value to networking, but I don't think the traditional model of supporting the bars in Ormocto by constantly importing fresh meat for a few weeks or months is needed for all courses currently delivered there.


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## Old Sweat (19 Mar 2012)

I believe that the Artillery School has run some officer DP1 series courses at regiments during the summer. I can not comment further regarding the reasons for this course (no pun intended) being selected, but someone may be able to add further info.

A million years ago, actually in 1978, the Infantry School ran a Phase 2 in Chilliwack in the January - March period. A bit of background - the school had stated that Phase 2 could not be run in Gagetown in the winter and had redesigned their training accordingly. (Some how the infantry had coped with winter for quite a while when the school had been in Borden and then Gagetown, but they had convinced somebody.) This, of course, necessitated having young officers return to CTC the following summer for Phase IV instead of leading their platoons in the summer concentrations. Needless to say, when faced with the prospect of supervising Phase 2 at the other end of the country, the school found a way to revert to the old system for 1979 onward.


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## vonGarvin (19 Mar 2012)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> Any reason why instructors from the Infantry school are glued to Gagetown?  Why can't we send instructors to students instead of students to instructors?  That's one way to maintain the standards.



No reason at all why they couldn't do this.  The current model, however, isn't getting the benefits (all dollar-driven) that was first thought.  Yes, it's true that the majority of candidates are in battalions co-located with brigades and associated support; however, there were enough candidates who weren't that the dollar savings were not realised.  

For some courses, doing them away makes perfect sense.  The example listed above, BMOQ-L, is a perfect candidate to be run away from Gagetown.  (If it were run exclusively here, the training area would be flooded with lost, sobbing and weeping 2Lts and OCdts).

For other courses, the numbers are such that it's best to run here.  The extreme is the DP 4 Infantryman; however, DP 3A and DP 3B are also better run here, in their entirety, and this is mainly due to the numbers involved.



			
				dapaterson said:
			
		

> There is value to networking, but I don't think the traditional model of supporting the bars in Ormocto by constantly importing fresh meat for a few weeks or months is needed for all courses currently delivered there.


Listen, the gene pool here in NB needs a bit of chlorine from time to time.  So, some "fresh blood" is just what the doctor ordered!   8)


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## jeffb (19 Mar 2012)

Old Sweat said:
			
		

> I believe that the Artillery School has run some officer DP1 series courses at regiments during the summer. I can not comment further regarding the reasons for this course (no pun intended) being selected, but someone may be able to add further info.



There was a FOO course that just ended in Petawawa. For the last few years there has been a DP 1.1 run in either Pet, Shilo or Valcartier and sometimes in 2 of these locations at the same time while a DP 1.1 is being run in Gagetown. My understanding is that with three DP 1.1's running concurrently, W Bty does not have the resources to support this many students. It's much easier, and cost effective, to send the candidates a few IG's/ AIG's out to the Regiments then to bring a gun Bty down to Gagetown into an already very crowded training area. I did my 1.1 in Shilo and found the experience to be very rewarding. 

I would be willing to guess that there will be fewer of these as the numbers being pushed through the training system decreases for the next few years but I am not at the school so I can't say that for certain.


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## dapaterson (19 Mar 2012)

Technoviking said:
			
		

> No reason at all why they couldn't do this.  The current model, however, isn't getting the benefits (all dollar-driven) that was first thought.  Yes, it's true that the majority of candidates are in battalions co-located with brigades and associated support; however, there were enough candidates who weren't that the dollar savings were not realised.



However, the increased satisfaction for more folks not having to relocate across the country is another benefit, though one that's mor edifficult to quantify.



> For some courses, doing them away makes perfect sense.  The example listed above, BMOQ-L, is a perfect candidate to be run away from Gagetown.  (If it were run exclusively here, the training area would be flooded with lost, sobbing and weeping 2Lts and OCdts).
> 
> For other courses, the numbers are such that it's best to run here.  The extreme is the DP 4 Infantryman; however, DP 3A and DP 3B are also better run here, in their entirety, and this is mainly due to the numbers involved.



Agreed - there needs to be an informed, realistic look at courses to decide where best to delvier them - not a knee-jerk "All training must be exported", nor a systemic "Gagetown is the only place that infrantry skills can be trained."


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## GAP (19 Mar 2012)

Would that save bundles on travel, IR, etc. costs also?


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## vonGarvin (19 Mar 2012)

dapaterson said:
			
		

> However, the increased satisfaction for more folks not having to relocate across the country is another benefit, though one that's mor edifficult to quantify.


The numbers that have to relocate across the country were not as initially anticipated.  A very slight majority didn't have to relocate, and that was due entirely because of 5 GMBC (using the existing example of the Infantryman DP 3A).  Taking 5 brigade out of the mix, and more people were actually going to Petawawa/Edmonton than were already in location.  This was due not only to the respective 2nd Battalions being "away", but also all those ERE folks that had to travel.


			
				dapaterson said:
			
		

> Agreed - there needs to be an informed, realistic look at courses to decide where best to delvier them - not a knee-jerk "All training must be exported", nor a systemic "Gagetown is the only place that infrantry skills can be trained."


You're right, of course.  We used to have the "Gagetown is the only place" argument (fail) and the current is "x% of training must be exported" argument is also flawed, IMO.  
If I were King, I would export a number of BMOQ-Land courses (keeping some here to maintain credibility), but would train the future DP 3A (Rifle Section Commander) and the DP 3B (Rifle Platoon 2IC) here in Gagetown for all the intangibles, including putting more variance in the NB gene pool.  The Future Small Arms course?  I think it could be exported to the Training Centres.  But that's just me.


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## Journeyman (19 Mar 2012)

Technoviking said:
			
		

> ..I would export a number of BMOQ-Land courses (keeping some here to maintain credibility)....


So you're suggesting that only those courses run in Gagetown are credible....    :stirpot:


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## vonGarvin (19 Mar 2012)

Journeyman said:
			
		

> So you're suggesting that only those courses run in Gagetown are credible....    :stirpot:



er....

ah....

(of course not.  Just it would be rather odd for an institution to be the "centre of excellence" for something that it didn't even do)  ;D


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## Journeyman (19 Mar 2012)

Ah well, since you guys are the only ones calling the school the "centre of excellence"....  ;D


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## vonGarvin (19 Mar 2012)

Journeyman said:
			
		

> Ah well, since you guys are the only ones calling the school the "centre of excellence"....  ;D


If we say it enough, we just may end up believing it ourselves   :nod:


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## daftandbarmy (19 Mar 2012)

Why don't we just do it 'OMLT style' for our courses? If it works in Afghanistan and other parts of the world it should work here, shouldn't it? Then again, our OUTCAN students and support networks are probably far more cooperative. ;D


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## vonGarvin (19 Mar 2012)

daftandbarmy said:
			
		

> Why don't we just do it 'OMLT style' for our courses? If it works in Afghanistan and other parts of the world it should work here, shouldn't it? Then again, our OUTCAN students and support networks are probably far more cooperative. ;D


The problem is getting a critical mass for courses.  And of course, we have the unique geographical "situation" of being five time zones from end to end.  There are only so many instructor billets, and they aren't manned to capacity, so...


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## McG (19 Mar 2012)

Infanteer said:
			
		

> ... moving courses from the centre of the training universe (Gagetown) and to garrisons where people are based (Edmonton, Pet).


I've never seen a traveling course staff conduct a course in another location.  Instead, a unit gets tasked to run the exported course - there may be instructor augmentation from the central school, and there will be standards oversight from the central school.  It does happen from time to time.  Sometimes it works, and other times it does not.  Success is dependant on the availability of qualified pers, the availability of required resources, and the willingness of a fd unit to commit the time and effort to host the exported course.


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## GnyHwy (19 Mar 2012)

Another issue with sending instructors from CTC to other locations is most instructors in Gagetown are doing more than one course at a time, and if they are only doing one, they are programming the next one concurrently.


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## Towards_the_gap (19 Mar 2012)

2 CER (in)famously ran an in-house QL3 in Petawawa back in the late 90's, early noughties, before my time it should be said. Why could it not be done again? 

I agree there is some benefit to running later (DP3 and up) career courses at centres of excellence (Ha!), but for DP1/2 why can't they be exported to field units, with oversight from the C's of E? I would happily teach courses in house, compared to being 12 hours away from my family for 6 odd months.

Food for thought.

Edited to add: In the case of Petawawa, we have the training area (bridging hards, dems ranges), the resources (2 EET), just give us the money, the time free from dog and ponies and other silly taskings and the ammo and I am sure it can be done.


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## Infanteer (19 Mar 2012)

The other side of the equation (I'm not a training guy so I'm just spitballing here) is that the units have enough on their to plate to consider giving them courses to run for the CTC.  Perhaps we should just focus on efficient manning at the schools.

I guess this contradicts my original statement that started this thread.  Perhaps the real focus should be on exporting courses from CTC to the Area Training Centers?


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## SeaKingTacco (19 Mar 2012)

I remember the late 80s and early 90s when we ran a lot of courses at the unit level...

I also remember the bitching about how resources intensive it was and how it got in the way of the unit doing unit trg.

You are just shuffling the deck chairs...


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## Fishbone Jones (19 Mar 2012)

Towards_the_gap said:
			
		

> 2 CER (in)famously ran an in-house QL3 in Petawawa back in the late 90's, early noughties, before my time it should be said. Why could it not be done again?
> 
> I agree there is some benefit to running later (DP3 and up) career courses at centres of excellence (Ha!), but for DP1/2 why can't they be exported to field units, with oversight from the C's of E? I would happily teach courses in house, compared to being 12 hours away from my family for 6 odd months.
> 
> ...



Ahhh, you hit on the sticky wicket. CTC doesn't like to part with their cash cow. In the end, no matter the argument and solid factors, they don't like to part with their cash, stores, ammo and fuel. Whatever good can come of decentralizing the courses gets squashed because it means a downsize in their budgets.


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## TangoTwoBravo (20 Mar 2012)

It can work if it is synched with managed readiness. A unit or sub-unit coming off high readiness can spend a year training and integratign new soldiers, essentially teaching DP1 within the unit lines.


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## Infanteer (20 Mar 2012)

That's actually a good idea.  In an ideal world, a returning unit would take an intake of DP1 and use them to sustain the inevitable post-tour attrition.


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## Wookilar (20 Mar 2012)

recceguy said:
			
		

> Ahhh, you hit on the sticky wicket. CTC doesn't like to part with their cash cow. In the end, no matter the argument and solid factors, they don't like to part with their cash, stores, ammo and fuel. Whatever good can come of decentralizing the courses gets squashed because it means a downsize in their budgets.



But it's higher than that. LFDTS, being a Command, does not want to be less than that and will fight tooth and nail anything that might be perceived to errode their authority. They are  Doctrine _and_ Training afterall, they do not want to risk loosing the T portion.

Wook


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## Towards_the_gap (20 Mar 2012)

We all know the MRP idea is a great theory, however in practice units just coming off high readiness/tours often end up being the crap jobs experts for their respective brigades, expected to fill taskings and course augmentations ad infinitum while the next unit in the brigade ramps up for high readiness. One poor soul in my squadron has spent approximately 2 months at home yearly for the past 3 years. 

I know at my level there would be strong support for running in-house QL3's/5's. Send down a standards cell from the CofE for overwatch, then the unit conducting the training gets a break from the readiness cycle. Let LFDTS take care of the doctrine, and let the units do the training. 

CFLAWC seems able to download courses to the masses, why can't CTC?

I know what I speak of is probably oversimplistic however can anyone explain why, apart from intradepartmental empire building, this can't be done?


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## Wookilar (20 Mar 2012)

My turn to be oversimplistic I think.

CFLAWC can export their courses a bit easier because all they really need is an aircraft (of various types), a DZ, and relatively few instructors that can easily (usually) be pulled from the units.

I can see one of the larger dog-fights with exporting courses will be over ammo allocation. Unless we somehow tie an allocation to the course itself, independent of where it is run or who runs it, the Bgd's and the schools will be fighting over who's allocation to use.

We never have enough of any kind of ammo and there is no way the units will willingly use their own, usually limited, allocation to support a course downloaded to them.

Wook


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## McG (20 Mar 2012)

SeaKingTacco said:
			
		

> I also remember the bitching about how resources intensive it was and how it got in the way of the unit doing unit trg.


That seems to be my recollection of the AAR conclusion on export QL3 courses pushed to 4 ESR and 2 CER.  Running one DP1 can consume the efforts of a complete Fd Sqn and the Regt Ress Tp.  5 RGC ran a course more recently (~ 2 to 3 years ago), but I don't know what the feeling was on the success of that trg.



			
				Towards_the_gap said:
			
		

> CFLAWC seems able to download courses to the masses, why can't CTC?


CFLAWC is part of CTC.  If CFLAWC is exporting courses to Bdes or ATCs, then that would be CTC exporting courses.



			
				Towards_the_gap said:
			
		

> I know what I speak of is probably oversimplistic however can anyone explain why, apart from intradepartmental empire building, this can't be done?


I am not sure that empire building is a factor.  I seem to have the impression that leadership within CTC was recently pushing to find more opportunities for exported training.  However, as Wookilar points out, I don't recall if that transfer of work was intended to include a full transfer of the funding.


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## 392 (20 Mar 2012)

Towards_the_gap said:
			
		

> 2 CER (in)famously ran an in-house QL3 in Petawawa back in the late 90's, early noughties, before my time it should be said. Why could it not be done again?
> 
> I agree there is some benefit to running later (DP3 and up) career courses at centres of excellence (Ha!), but for DP1/2 why can't they be exported to field units, with oversight from the C's of E? I would happily teach courses in house, compared to being 12 hours away from my family for 6 odd months.
> 
> ...



I was one of said instructors; the Regt ran two QL3s - one run by 4 Tp and the other by 5 Tp. Although in theory it seems like it's easy to do, the execution of it turned out to be really quite different. At the time, 24 Fd Sqn was running the QL3s and 23 was getting ready to deploy to Kosovo with most of the available and fit bodies. Which left 8 instructors running the training for their respective course. Each Tp had a TC, Tp WO, Recce Sgt, 4 Sect Comds, 4 Sect 2ICs and 4 drivers, and a Tp Storeman with some ridiculous number of students assigned to each Sect. We did all of the trg within our lines, and even had a dry gap dug by HET out where the LAV calibration area is now for the MGB, Acrow and EWBB portions. The downer was we had to travel to Gagetown to conduct the Dml phase for some reason, although we made it work as always. 

When you factor in other taskings and career courses or PD training, at any one time we had about 6 instructors on the ground in our Tp. Taking into account PT started at about 0500 or so for the course, the end of trg day was somewhere around 2000 before the students were left to complete their kit and quarters, and lesson preps for the next day were completed after that - it turns into some VERY long days for the staff. Multiply that by 7 days/wk for 5 months or so, and you suddenly realize why damn near all of the staff in the Sqn were beginning to get very run down towards the end. 

"But we have all of these resources and manpower" say ye? Yes there is - unfortunately, the Bde doesn't see it that way, and all of the normal taskings and other crap keep coming. Compare that to what is in CFSME, where you have an entire Sqn who's sole mission is the production of graduates and have the resources to accomplish that (the resources are physically there anyways). Even if DP1 Tp doesn't have the staff to cover off on certain days, they can backfill from other parts of the Sqn. The discussions about the number of instructors currently posted there who actually understand what their mission is is a topic best left for the mess.

From what I have gotten through the pipeline, the Spr output of CFSME is slowing down, with upcoming QL3 courses being cancelled or zero loaded. FETS is not in any way overloaded (at least at the DP1 level) like it was in 1999 when we conducted those courses. Add to that the reorg of FETS back to the former topic-based cell system rather than the DP-based system, and the workload will be distributed over a much larger pool of instructors instead of the same 10 guys looking after 30 students for months on end. 

All that to say - if FETS can't handle the throughput - definitely farm those courses out. While they can handle it, let them. It's their gig - and as much as it may seem like an easy five months of "a break", it's really not. The old adage "the grass really isn't greener..." really applies.

One last point - in the O-Gp a couple weeks back, we were told LFDTS wants to stop having incremental instructors come to G'town, so that should in theory reduce the extra load on being away from home for the field force guys coming to CTC to instruct....in theory.... 

My  :2c: 

YMMV.


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## aesop081 (21 Mar 2012)

In CFSME's case, could some of the smaller courses instructed by FETS be farmed out to the units.

Example is the PBO course. The units have the equipment and the course is not very long and resource intensive. Running the course took me away from my other duties in FETS full-time. It's been a while but the AWS course could be done away from CFSME as well, no ?


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## Nfld Sapper (21 Mar 2012)

CDN Aviator said:
			
		

> In CFSME's case, could some of the smaller courses instructed by FETS be farmed out to the units.
> 
> Example is the PBO course. The units have the equipment and the course is not very long and resource intensive. Running the course took me away from my other duties in FETS full-time. It's been a while but the AWS course could be done away from CFSME as well, no ?



AWS, yes.... as long as all the EA's are done.....some areas are dinks about this... 1 CER was in Chiliwack for an ex and the closest to the water the province would allow the ROWPU was 500m...... problem is we don't have that much hoses or suction on the machine.....


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## 392 (21 Mar 2012)

CDN Aviator said:
			
		

> In CFSME's case, could some of the smaller courses instructed by FETS be farmed out to the units.
> 
> Example is the PBO course. The units have the equipment and the course is not very long and resource intensive. Running the course took me away from my other duties in FETS full-time. It's been a while but the AWS course could be done away from CFSME as well, no ?



In theory, I don't see why the Regts couldn't do it, but again, it all comes down to that CO's ability to support the trg. While I cannot speak for the other Regts, 2 CER does not and has not had a Ress Tp for a number of years now - it was turned into a diver and EOD-heavy Combat Support Tp with a sprinkling of FEE Ops to round out the capability. Water supply was mostly pushed over to the WFEs in the CT, and the boats sat idle for a number of years in the EET with only a handful of guys to maintain and occasionally operate them. Of course, this was a couple years back before I was posted to the college of knowledge, so things may have changed in addition to a full-time EOD Tp standing up and an EROC capability being spooled full time.

As I said earlier, FETS isn't hurting for resources or instructors, so I don't really see the reason to farm those courses out with the sole exception of soldiers staying within their home geographical locations, which of course only applies to the soldiers who belong to the unit hosting that trg. Is it worth making AWS and PBO Regt Schools courses? My first impression is that it would be no different than running any other Regt Schools course, and would definitely be far less resource intensive than the old FEE Op OJT package run at the Regt to select suitability for the 042 5A. So, in the short term I would say it could be done without any adverse effects, but is it sustainable in the long(er) term?

Now if we could just get the trades helper courses back, we'd be set  :stirpot:


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