Camp Clark pre-mobilization training program leads the way in Missouri

Nevada, Mo. -- Missouri and Vernon County's own Camp Clark are on the cutting edge of new pre-mobilization training concepts being implemented across the United States.

The nation is watching while Missouri takes the lead in revamping the mobilization and deployment time frame for the country's National Guard.

When a member of the Missouri National Guard is given orders for a 12 month deployment to Iraq, Afghanistan or Kosovo the period of actual time away from home and employment is typically 16 to 18 months With the new system, the mobilization training time has been divided into two segments. The first is now dubbed 'pre-mobilization' and is conducted within the Guard's own state.

When asked to explain further, Captain Tamara Spicer of the Missouri National Guard Public Affairs Office said,

"Deployment is when someone actually deploys overseas; when he gets on the plane to go to Iraq, Afghanistan, or Kosovo.

'Mobilization means you are called up to duty.' In the past mobilization activities were done at Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, Fort Riley, Kansas, or Fort Dix, New Jersey. By splitting mobilization training into two segments, most of the training time can be spent in Missouri.

'Soldiers will still be away from their employer, but it won't be as much time away from the family," Spicer said.

For Missouri Guards, this means the few hours off duty while here in the states, can be spent with their families, not hundreds of miles away in another state. Total deployment time will now typically be 13 months, not 16 or more.

Major Hartman, Operation Officer for Training and Evaluations Battalion from Fort Leonard Wood, and a 23 year member of the Missouri Nation Guards, explained.

'Using myself as an example, I deployed June 21, 2004 and didn't come off deployment till September 4, 2005 I was overseas almost exactly one year. With the mobilization time up front and post war time afterward, I was gone 16 months. Several units were gone over 18 months. The Secretary of Defense decided this was too long away from family and employers.' With some of that mobilization time spent stationed here in Missouri, Missouri Guards will have less time under federal orders, Hartman said.

He added, 'Staying in Missouri means time off can be spent with family. The majority of us have deployed and know what it's like. We know what happens around the home getting the family ready for deployment. It's easier to get home to take care of things if you're still in Missouri.' Four new training sites have been selected in Missouri at a cost of $2.2 million in construction for the new mission.

Camp Clark has been selected as one of these pre-mobilization sites and much work has been done to get it prepared.

With the pre-mobilization training concept established in February, the work has been intense to get Camp Clark ready by the October deadline.

'The whole Camp Clark staff have been very helpful,' Hartman said. 'The work going on is troop labor. Construction and vertical engineers (who build roads)from across the sate of Missouri were asked to come on duty and build the sites.

A local contractor has been doing some of the work; Camp Clark is bringing in lumber and gravel purchased from this area.' All Missouri National Guards will train at Camp Clark during premobilization.

They will still go to mobilizations sites located in other states, but will all come here first for pre-mobilizations.

From those camps they will deploy overseas.

"It sounds like we are adding a step," Hartman said, "but these are the same steps they would have done at out-of- state mobilization sites so this lets them stay in Missouri longer." Hartman said.

Hartman points out another real boon for Missouri National Guardsmen who can now take pre-mobilization training at Camp Clark. 'The majority of our trainers and staff have deployed into combat areas in either Afghanistan, Kosovo or Iraq. We have the experience of being there, coming under fire and having to react to it. Most of our soldiers have at least one deployment. We are Missouri guardsmen and will take a more personal approach to training fellow Missourians. We feel we can do a better job with our people.

"Training is no different than you'd find anywhere else, but now we have them as a Missouri assets at Camp Clark," He said. There's a Military Operations on Urban Terrain site, for example

"What we have constructed is a simulated Iraq or Afghan village, identical in size and breakdown. So troops can learn to move into a building and clear it safely.

Entry Control Point, he said, a very important element in any conflict. "That's where a majority of soldiers have their only interaction with the outside world of Iraq or Afghanistan. It is the entry point to the base."

"Soldiers can practice skills needed here so they can do better there."

Hartman stressed that the ECP was one of the most important training elements. "It's where the contractors come on post to build, where the foreign nationals come onto the base to work"

There are also Forward Operating Bases, an actual, full-sized, simulated base that functions like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan so the unit learns some of the difficulties of living on a base and how to operate safely on that base. Security and communications on the base are drilled as are all the items for the day-to-day safe operation of a base.