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Air Assault!
By Charlie
I thought that I would do a post on Air Assault School, to give some insight on current Army training, the National Guard, and the general shape of things on the ground level of the state-side military.
"A soldier will fight long and hard for a bit of colored ribbon" -Napoleon Bonaparte, 15 July 1815. To the captain of HMS Bellerophon.…or go through 11 days of training for an Air Assault badge.
280 soldiers from across America gathered in Fort Pickett, Virginia two weeks ago to undergo a training course that would qualify them for the US Army Air Assault badge. The training would revolve around the infantry’s use of helicopters on the battlefield. This included training on aeromedevac operations, slingload rigging, and rappelling, all in a tough training environment revolving around PT and road marching. Beyond that, no one knew much about what to expect.
The soldiers came mostly from the National Guard. They came from Engineer battalions from Nebraska and Connecticut, Infantry units from Virginia, Indiana, Arkansas, and Texas. Doctors came in from Medical detachments, Army reservists from Civil Affairs and PSYOPS battalions, and Active Duty personnel came up from Georgia and Colorado –many on leave from their active duty training. Combat patches were worn on the right shoulder of at least half of the men as we stood in formation at 0500 on “Zero Day” morning. About two thirds of the soldiers were NCOs and officers, with the rest being junior enlisted personnel, specialists, and privates fresh from Basic Training and AIT.
The Cadre that would instruct us during our course was organized into a Mobile Training Team (MTT) from the National Guard Warrior Training Center at Fort Benning, GA. These guys traveled across the country, holding Air Assault courses from Oklahoma to Oregon, to Virginia, to West Point. So there we stood in the assembly area (a parking lot), 280 of us in BDUs and boots as they read off our roster numbers.
As each soldier’s number was called they reported to the rear of the in-processing building, where the cadre (mostly corporals and buck sergeants, 20-25 years old, fresh from combat tours abroad) immediately began to work out small groups of soldiers. I found myself doing many, many pushups and flutterkicks, as we waited for a short bus ride to the training area.
Zero Day involved the completion of a 9 obstacle course, and a two mile run directly following it in less than 18 minutes. That didn’t seem like to much of a “barrier to entry” to me –being in shape and fairly confident in my non-fear of heights and skill in jumping over things. However, zero day shredded the class. First, Fort Pickett in June isn’t the most pleasant place to be –barren yet forested, tick and chigger infested, and oppressively muggy and humid. As the morning sun beat down on us, we waited in formation to run through the obstacle course. Two of the obstacles were mandatory: the “tough one,” which involved a rope climb, a walk across an elevated beam, and a climb over and down a cargo net. Easy. The next one was the “confidence climb,” which was basically two telephone poles driven into the ground, joined by 4x4 posts about 10 feet long, forming a giant ladder you had to climb. Cake. The rest of the obstacles were simple –the problem was the cadre working you out in between them. By the time we finished, I was fairly drained, with the two mile run left to go.
It took about 3 hours to get everyone through the course, then the run started. Being in shape, I finished with plenty of time to spare, but Zero Day withered the ranks from 280 down to about 170 soldiers. The rest of the day was spent getting worked out, in-processed, and familiarized with the training area. I was made a platoon leader, in charge of roughly half the class, much to my chagrin.
I didn’t necessarily loathe my assignment, but I had a philosophy I liked to stick to when undergoing mass Army training. First: do no harm. Don’t mess anything up, or give anyone a reason not to like you. Next, don’t be a spotlight Ranger, don’t show-off, talk up your “experience,” or talk down to anybody. Finally, keep your head down, your ears and eyes open, glean as much information as possible, pass the course, return to your unit a better trained soldier, and do your unit, your name, and the officer corps proud.
Unfortunately, a leadership position put me in the limelight, but there wasn’t time to argue. Suck it up and drive on.
The first three days of the course were long, PT laden, and stuffed with dry Power Point briefings. We stood in the parking lot doing overhead arm claps for 45 minutes because someone committed some grievous minor infractions. Our morning formations somewhere between 0400-0500 always started out with cries of “who wants to quit?” from the cadre. Some people did.
We learned about air assault operations, the different types of helicopters the Army uses, and the use of aeromedevac. We learned about Black hawks, Chinooks, Apaches, and UH-1H choppers. We learned about the different duties of infantry, aviation, fire support, engineers, intelligence, and support units in an air assault mission. The Power Point was relentless, and the instructors often turned to us to break the monotony.
“Someone tell a joke!” they’d order, and a young soldier would hop up to the front of the class and make an attempt at humor. Most weren’t funny, and were jeered with calls of “Boo this man!” if they told a stinker, and rollicking laughter if they hit a homer. The instructors weren’t allowed to cuss at us, which greatly degraded the training, but it limited the “color” of the jokes told. Any cussing was punished with an immediate 20 push-ups.
Phase I drew to a hot humid close. The next widow-maker in Air Assault school would be in Phase II: Slingloads. When gear is slingloaded, it is rigged for air transport by a helicopter. We had to learn the slingloads for a M998 HMMWV, the Vietnam-era M102 Howitzer (Ours was made in 1967, I guess Virginia couldn’t field any M119s), a cargo net, cargo bag, and fuel/water blivetts. Following a six-mile foot march that kicked off at 0400, the class dove into studying the various procedures for rigging the loads. Each soldier had to develop a “process” to inspect the load for deficiencies. The test would give us 4 loads, and we had to identify three of the near-infinite number of deficiencies that could be rigged into the load. If this test was not passed, you did the duffel bag drag. Test day came as the hot and humid weather broke into a summer thunderstorm, and half of the class (including me) no-go’d on their first attempt at inspecting the loads.
The pressure was on in the afternoon, after huddling under the rappelling tower in the “No Go Pit” and choking down another MRE for lunch. The load that got me was the A22 cargo bag, a damned near jumble of clasps and knots and links that all had to be smooth, no twists, no kinks, and not misrouted or have a “quick release” tied into them. In the rain, I re-inspected the bag, and thankfully caught the three deficiencies. I would stay in the course, but 32 soldiers failed the test, and left that evening.
Our evenings were quiet but busy. We lived in the WWII-style barracks Fort Pickett offered. After chow, we would have a leadership meeting. Our company commander, first sergeant, platoon leaders and platoon sergeants huddled quickly with all of the squad leaders to discuss the next day’s training. Moving the class to and from training, and supervising them fell on the chain of command –the cadre mainly taught the courses, and didn’t intrude on us much in the barracks. That was good –and bad. When someone showed up to formation without a full canteen of water, it was the leadership’s fault.
The final Phase of the course focused on rappelling. We started on the tower, and worked our way from the wall side to the open side. We rappelled using a tied hip rappel seat (which was NOT called a “Swiss Seat” anymore, presumably because the Swiss wouldn’t commit its Swiss Guards to combat duty in Iraq…). The bad part about this was that we stayed in the rappel seat ALL DAY. The ropes rubbed into our hips, leaving red streaks across our bodies. Rappelling concluded with an all-day test that culminated with a 90-foot rappel off a Black Hawk.
The course finished off with a 12-mile foot march. We finished, drenched in sweat and happy to be done. Air Assault school wasn’t designed to be a school that produced death-dealing commandos- it had a simple lane, and it stayed in it. The soldiers that completed the course (About 150 out of 280) returned to their unit with a shiny new badge, confidence in their abilities to execute air assault operations, and more well-trained than when they arrived.
In conclusion, this course showed the National Guard at its best. It was a tough course that enforced the standards, and I’m glad I got the opportunity to attend it.
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I took this at Fort Campbell back in the 1980s. Did they move the course or make it mobile?
I went to Air Assault School in 1993 in Hawaii. My squad leader had a buddy who was an instructor and he called him to let him know that one of his soldiers was coming and that he should "take care of me" and that he did. During the first formation he called out my name and when I said "here, Sgt." He said "Do push-ups". Everytime we were in the classroom and the instructor needed a "volunteer" I was it. When we went running it was "If anybody falls out 339 [my roster number] will pay." For the slingload written test my name was called out as a "fail". I had to take my ruck and go with all the no-go's for retraining and 5 minutes in the instructor looked at me and said "339 get the hell out of here." For the slingload hands-on test we had a pre-test on Friday and the test on Monday, if you passed the pre-test you were good to go. I passed everything and then the instructors had a formation for everyone who passed to cross check with their list and as they went down the list they had skipped my name. Finally there were only two of us left and the instructor looks at his clipboard and says "339 you're not on the list, you didn't pass" and I said "Yes I did", and he said no and then all the other instructors swarmed around me saying "no you didn't pass my station" and I kept insisting the truth that I did pass, and finally they got tired of messing with me and sent me on. At the rappel stage I would be standing in the belay line on the opposite side of the rappel tower and I would hear "339 hit the red log" and I'd go do my push ups and come back in line the other guys would look at me and ask "what the hell did you do" and I'd say "I don't know" . But one of the things I learned in the Army is that if you deal with this kind of stuff with a sense of humor and confidence then there will be rewards and there were. When we did the rappel test I passed the combat rappel, but the for the Hollywood rappel my "favorite" instructor no-go'd me even though I did it right and sent me back up. So I went again and again another no-go. So I went up again and this time I made sure I got in a line for another grader but when I hit the ground this grader said "Go see SGT K" and he said "339 do it again" . So I go up and the rappelmaster hooks me up and I look over the edge and SGT K is down there waving his red pen at me. By this time most everybody is done and doing a police call, picking up trash. So I rappel down and he says "You want to go again?" And of course I said yes. I did 6 or 7 rappells. Later he said that he liked that I was motivated and that he was trying to keep me from having to do police call and that he knew that when I returned to my unit I wouldn't have the chance to rappel again (and he was right). I did a lot of elevated push ups at AAS but it was worth it. Air Assault was a fun challenge. I was fortunate to be at Schofield where they had a school so every infantryman had a chance to go.
2 items:
When my eldest graduated from Airborne at Benning, one of the other kid's grandfather made the comment that he'd been in the very same barracks building when he'd gone thru in '43...and he was pretty sure they hadn't painted it. (I mean, the SAME...)
I really think that what we need to bring our enemies down is millions of bootleg copies of Windows with Office and Powerpoint (arabic, farsi, pashtun...they wouldn't stand a chance...then the chinese copies)
I went through AASLT school, as a Private at Fort Campbell, back in September of 1990.
Believe it or not, because the 101st's air assets were deployed to Saudi Arabia for Desert Shield, already, we did not rappel out of, or even see, helicopters during our class. We got an extra day rappeling off the tower.
Thanks for the great article. I will be attending this course June 2007 and have been looking for info to prepare myself for the course. It was especially helpful to know that I will be expected to do the obstacle course, and then the 2 mile run on the first day. Therefore, I will train accordingly. I usually do my run and then weight-lifting.
Vietnam air assault pioneers were denied the retroactive badge and have been fighting for many years for a retroactive award. For more information, visit the Air Assault Parity Coalition website at http://airassault.bizhosting.com. We think the current generation of combat troops are outstanding and honor your service very much. Guy C. Lamunyon - Combat Medic - 101st Vietnam 1971.
I really enjoyed everyone's stories. I am a cadet going to AAS in early August at Ft. Knox. I believe one of the Mobile Training Teams is doing it. My greatest fear isn't the obstacle course, any of the running, not the rappeling, or the the academics, it is not having some item at inspection.
I work at The Air Assault School, for the reason so many fail, if we waited for each person to do it right then the course would be a month long. How much would that cost. If you are a first time go or a tenth time go, does your wings ever look different. We use the same grading process as the rest of the Army, 1st time Nogo, re-trian and retest. How many chances would you like. The couse is not just about getting a set of wings anyway, its about getting the training and doing it to the standard. We are farily leaniant. If you fail you really need to study and come back. it works out so most come so close to failing we have to make it so you dont. We give you numerous chances to redeem yourself. IE work off points and extra time to study loads after class. If you dont exploit those options, do you deserve to hold others back.
Thanks for all the stories and advice. I am also a cadet and will also be attending AAS school at Ft. Knox this August. I'm looking forward to being double stacked and a second generation air assault trooper.
Thanks for the info. I have been searching the web trying to find more information on zero day and the obstacle called "The Tough One" for the last week. I am preparing to attend the course in April of 2008 at Camp Atterbury and would appreciate it if anyone tell me more about this course, zero day or this obstacle that would help me prepare?
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So let me get this straight: These units where ever spend the money to send guys to this course (Or the Guard Bureau spends the money or whatever) and they basically fail half the class?
How much did this cost? Any ideas?
I cannot help but wonder if there is a better way to conduct this sort of training.
After all, you said it wasn't rocket-science.