Return to Guardlife Homepage
JT2DC gets new MRAP Trainer
Story and photo by Spc. Saul Rosa, 444th Mobile Public Affairs Detachment

A new Mine Resistant Ambush Protected Vehicle Egress Trainer (MET) has been brought to benefit service members training through a collaborative cost-saving effort by the Joint Training and Training Development Center and the training and mobilization site.

Staging the MET at the New Jersey National Guard's JT2DC offers many benefits to the service members who use the trainer and is a cost-effective alternative for training and mobilization missions.

"I need to get the best training available for my Soldiers and

Master Sgt. Rene Sales an operator/instructor and training developer/ writer for Joint Training and Training Development Center watching the cabin of the MRAP Egress Trainer.


to get the Soldiers to know their training will save their lives and their friends," said Master Sgt. Rene Sales, a Senior Trainer at the JT2DC.

Besides the great training environment, JT2DC offers it's also a cost-effective and green solution to the escalating cost of training the nation's war fighter.

The MET itself offers a realistic simulation to develop the proper skills and confidence in all service members' ability to safely egress from an overturned vehicle and survive on a battlefield. The MET's ability to spin 360 degrees allows personnel to familiarize themselves with the 29 degree tipping point and the 34 degree definite fl ip point of a real tactical vehicle.

The training center offers a unique training environment for the MET and service members, because of its convoy layout with other Humvee Egress Assistance Trainers (HEAT). This combination allows trainers to practice advance egress scenarios and incorporate battle drills and medical evacuation training by mixing up which vehicle will flip.

"This is where they get to touch the equipment before they go to a theater of operation and have to learn it there," said Sales

The MET has provided realistic and hands-on training to about 100 Soldiers in the last training year and more than 900 service members are now scheduled to receive the training that increases the survivability rate on the ground in such places as Afghanistan and Iraq.


NEW JERSEY PARTICIPATES IN ULCHI FREEDOM GUARDIAN '10
By Staff Sgt. Nicholas Young, Joint Training and Training Development Center, Visual Information

Thirty-five New Jersey Army National Guard Soldiers led by Lt. Col. Mark Piterski participated in the joint warfighter simulation Ulchi Freedom Guardian '10 at Camp Courtney, Okinawa, Japan from Aug. 16 – 26, 2010.

The New Jersey team consisted of 21 Soldiers from the Joint Training and Training Development Center and 14 Soldiers from the 50th Infantry Brigade Combat Team and the Joint Force Headquarters – New Jersey. This team was assigned an Infantry Brigade Combat Team mission task organized to support the III Marine Expeditionary Force during UFG '10.

UFG is a CFC-led warfighting exercise. It provides the opportunity to evaluate, train, and improves combined and joint coordination, procedures, plans, and systems necessary for the conduct of contingency operations by the Republic of Korea and U.S. forces.

While in Japan, Pvt. Teresa Jara of the Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 50th IBCT and Pfc. Christopher Caamano of the 102nd Cavalry, were promoted by Piterski and the III Marine Expeditionary Force Chief of Staff, Col. Craig Timberlake. The two Soldiers served as intelligence analysts, and received accolades from all levels of the intelligence community that were involved in the exercise.

"The team was successful in its operations due to the robust intelligence section with bright, energetic and focused analysts like Spc. Caamano and Pfc. Jara," said Piterski.

This year marked the exercise's 34th anniversary. In July 1976, ROK forces combined Exercise Ulchi with the United Nations Command and its U.S. allied forces Exercise Focus Lens. Exercise Ulchi-Focus Lens, as it was called until its name was changed in 2008, was designed to enhance ROK-U.S. interoperability by training both countries' commanders and staff in wartime planning, command and control operations, intelligence, logistics and personnel procedures required for defending the Republic of Korea.

Table of Contents
Volume 35 Number 2 Staff / Information
     
(c) 2011 NJ Department of Military and Veterans Affairs
http://www.nj.gov/military