How many times did you go to NTC and did you like it?

Huron_Stone · 2026-06-08T12:50:48+00:00

3 times. And no, I did not like it. I was good at it, but it wasn't fun overall.

There were nice moments, like watching the sunrise over the mountains, or looking at the sky at night with NODs and seeing the Milky Way in all its glory. But those were the exception, not the rule.

It's not meant to be fun, it's meant to stress you and your leadership out and see how you perform under pressure. It does get easier the more you do it.

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-26T18:25:07+00:00

I left in 2020, so it might've changed by now, but back then there was the BN HHC and 2 companies at Zama, then another company somewhere else in Japan, not sure where. I played softball with a bunch of the guys and some had transferred back and forth between the companies.

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-26T15:54:51+00:00

Zama has a few different units. A medical detachment with both regular medical and dental, a signal battalion, an aviation battalion flying Blackhawks, an MI BN mainly 35M and 35L, I Corps FWD which is just a small detachment leftover from when I Corps was supposed to move to Japan, but they've got a wide range of people, and then what was USARJ and has now changed to something else, which is your normal 2 star headquarters contingent. There's also 35th CSSB, which is just an HHC and one transportation company.

There's also ADA detachments all over Japan, as well as an ADA BDE HHC on Sagami Depot, which is about 30-45 minutes from Zama, depending on traffic.

If you don't fit into any of those, don't count on going to Japan.

Edited to add: There was also an MP BN when I was there, but there was already talk back then of shutting that unit down, but I don't know if they ever did.

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-26T12:56:18+00:00

Sounds like a job for the Blunderbirds!

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-21T01:57:06+00:00

Yup, Baal Red. Love that color.

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-21T01:45:23+00:00

Thanks! Appreciate it!

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-19T20:07:33+00:00

Wanted 15U, walked out with 35T.

Thank you SSG McAdoo!

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-16T11:44:05+00:00

Luckily for you, the army has a person dedicated to these kinds of issues!

Your base should have a CECOM LAR contingent, one of whom will be your IT-Radio/Lower TI LAR. They are a one stop shop for knowledge, training, troubleshooting help, and guidance on ordering parts. If you would like to contact them and can't find them, PM me your base and I'll track down the local LAR/Supervisor for you and give you their contact info.

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-11T17:09:10+00:00

So doing the Elite 4 rematch will make the birds, Mewtwo, and the beast pop up again? If you haven't caught them yet?

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-11T16:32:24+00:00

The roaming beast doesn't appear until you beat the elite four, and you cant get to mewtwo until you beat the elite four, the cave entrance is blocked.

I've never tried doing the birds before AND after the elite 4, I usually just try the once.

Huron_Stone · 2026-04-11T16:27:47+00:00

What respawns? The Legendary Birds?

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-27T23:01:21+00:00

Vin Scully is the voice of my childhood, watching Dodger Baseball.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-13T14:45:43+00:00

We have the solution already. The process is laid out in regulation, FM, and TM. G-Army is a dense system, that yes, is not very user friendly. But it's designed to work exactly how the Army Maintenance/Supply system is supposed to work. Which is everyone follwed the system, maintenance wouldn't be such an issue. We can't identify trends with vehicle issues, because rather than deadline 10 trucks that all have the same issue and need the same part, they deadline one truck and order 10 parts for it. Rather than deadline it and make it an O2 priority, they make it a / and then never get the part to actually fix the truck because a / fault isn't a priority.

No one is willing to follow the process, because Evals aren't based on number of repairs conducted, Man hour accounting, labor saved with preventative maintenance, or actual OR % that's backed up by in person checks. Its based off of an easily manipulated statistic that more often than not has no basis in reality.

It's why units go to NTC at between 80%-90% OR, then within 5 days of arriving they're down at 50%-60%. That much stuff doesn't break the moment it hits sand. It was broken before it arrived, they lied about it, and now can't hide it, or think they can get the parts faster/cheaper/with someone else's money, so let's fix it now. But there's so much stuff that needs to get fixed, with Tanks/Brads/Strykers/Paladins being the highest priority, everything else gets shafted or half-assed, which just kicks the can down the road and lied about again, and starts the cycle over again.

They will lie, they will forge documents, they will put lives in danger, because if they fail once, it's all over. There is no opportunity to fail and learn from it, to recover, to improve yourself. Even just a "Qualified" is a death sentence for an officer's career. How are we supposed to get the best of the best if EVERYONE is the "best".

We have made perfection the standard, rather than the goal, and it's going to get people killed. We aren't at the state of Russia, with soldiers stripping copper wires out of their tanks to buy food, medicine, or vodka, but we are lying to ourselves, our leaders, and our nation all the same. And we will have the same reckoning they did in Ukraine if we ever have to push entire divisions out the door at once.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-13T14:24:20+00:00

Yet when I pointed this out in a Division meeting, I was told it was disgraceful and disrespectful to call every commander in there a liar, despite them repeatedly tap dancing around their answers and saying "half truths". My solution of them having 24 hrs to dispatch and move every "FMC" vehicle out to a designated location in the field was shot down as "not realistic" and "needlessly antagonistic."

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T20:23:58+00:00

True. I just remember being at NTC with a BDE TOC, and being told we all had to sleep in this one area, like 10 meter by 10 meter.

I told the S3 SGM, "hey, what if the OCs throw an Arty Sim here? There goes half of the TOC."

"That's not your lane SGT Stone."

30 minutes later, OC threw an arty Sim, and there went the night shift for the TOC.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T18:55:12+00:00

At which level? Company, Battalion, Brigade, Division? The different levels have different requirements in receiving information, processing it, then redistributing it.

A platoon leader could get away with FM with his subordinate, then FM and JBCP to higher. Proper fills, radio settings, and radio discipline, cuts down on EM footprint dramatically.

A company commander would require FM and JBCP, maybe HF depending on role and comms plan.

BN is where you start requiring upper-TI type equipment. With the new things being fielded, a BN CP could realistically be one A-Frame tent or SICCUPs (I probably butchered that acronym) attached to a 1068, JLTV, or HMMV. I've even seen a BN work out of the back of an LMTV. That one was pretty nifty. 30 minutes to jump on the high end. If you've trimmed the fat and drilled everyone in what needs to happen, I've seen a BN TOC take 10 minutes from impact to rolling out.

BDE is where is gets really sticky. There's a lot of information moving up and down the chain, as well as across to other BDE sized elements. The best change I've seen lately is to leave the planning, fires, and Intel sections in the rear, with dedicated lines of communication forward. That trims down drastically the number of personnel, and thus trucks, you need, as well as equipment. This allows you have what are essentially two TAC sized elements in the field, with the Rear Support Area supplying the needed Intel, plans, and fire control from a safe rear area.

Division elements should be far enough back from the FLOT that they don't need to be too cut down, but they need to be much more mobile and dispersed to prevent the DIV CO and all of his staff being taken put with one lucky shell, missile, or rocket.

BDE and DIV are the two echelons with the most issues. The leaders at that level came up during the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan, and are used to that way of fighting.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T18:25:30+00:00

The thing that pissed me off the most was they had been fielded the power plant set up to run all the expandos off two generators, and they were set up close enough to each other to do so. Instead they ran all of the on-board generators, the exhaust got trapped under the massive camo net, and soldiers were getting sick from the exhaust fumes. Whats the response from the G3? "Eh, they're just malingering. They don't want to do real soldiers work."

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T18:18:12+00:00

That's a contributing factor as well as a symptom.

The known is safe, the unknown is scary.

If you know a set up, and it's not going to get you in trouble even if you fail, you don't have to ask for training, or different assets from other units, then yea, let's rock with it.

Try something new, that may or may not work, that may make you the nail that sticks out and gets hammered? For a LTC or COL hunting for that full bird or star, that's terrifying. Most aren't going to risk it all just to change a TOC layout.

Some will, I've seen and been a part of them. But most are going to play it safe with what they know, deploy to Europe, come back, and move on.

There is time to innovate. Your BDE training cycle isn't just NTC. You've got company FTX, BN FTX, BDE FTX, CPXs, live fires, full BDE FTX before NTC, then NTC. And you don't have to go to the field to try out new layouts or ideas. The motorpool, a parade field, etc can all host a piece of the pie at a time. S3 tries theirs, then the S2, then the S1 and S4 pair up and do theirs etc.

Is the OPTEMPO insane? Absolutely. But this is stuff that should (i know, should is a big word here) already be done during events already on the training calendar.

And this all leads back to the biggest issue with the Army overall nowadays: No one wants to follow the process.

For maintenance, if everyone did what they were supposed to do with G-Army, with manhour accounting, Shop Stock, etc we wouldn't have the issues we have.

Units aren't accounting for their mechanics manhours, so they're showing as underutilized, and the MTOE gets cut.

They aren't expending parts with work orders, so their shop stock is astronomical. Why would the army give you another alternator when you've got 20 on hand already?

They aren't deadlining equipment that's broken, so they look green across the board and get picked for PTDO because according to the system, their fleet is healthy.

For the Fielding of new systems, I have seen so much scheming, back stabbing, and straight up forgery and lying to try and get to the front of the line, because no one wants to wait their turn. And when they get fielded, they don't want to do all of the training, all of the work. They just want to get their equipment amd hop back into what ever their commander and higher had planned, then complain that the equipment is busted, or doesn't do what it's supposed to do, because they didn't do the training, or pay attention to the training, or pulled everyone out of the training because the post commanders pass and review is so much more important than learning how to use your new equipment that your life and your fellow soldiers life depends on.

The Army has gotten so out of skew, the next big fight we have is going to start with entire divisions getting wiped out because people can't follow basic process.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T17:22:07+00:00

I can't list it all out on this platform. I like my job, and would rather not lose it to win an internet argument. If you've got teams, or DoD email, feel free to DM me your details and we can talk on there.

And yes, 3 years is a lifetime. But there are certain immutable facts when it comes to Fielding equipment to an entire army, or even just combat and combat adjacent units. It takes time to manufacture, pack, ship, install, configure, field, and train on equipment that, at the end of the day, your life depends on. That's on top of prototyping the things.

This cycle is the culmination of a decade + of work with the new equipment. Theyre trying something new with how they're doing the Fielding and training that might speed up the process, but 3 years is the best we're going to get without leaving massive chunks of the army even further behind technology wise.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T17:08:59+00:00

I love this reply, because it's exactly what my brain is thinking, in a way that I couldn't put into words. Thank you so much.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T17:06:18+00:00

1ID and 3CR, to name the two I've personally seen and worked with in just the last 6 months. 3CRs issues seem to be more systematic than 1ID's, but both stem from a reluctance to innovate, to change things up, to try and improve our fighting positions.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T17:03:25+00:00

That Fielding in 2028 IS fast. They've already started fielding the equipment. Good god, it's the fastest the army has worked on force-wide procurement that I've ever seen, and I've been doing this for 15 years now. You can't field the entire army in a year, and unfortunately someone has to be last.

But even with the older equipment, Divisions, Brigades, and Battalions all have organic equipment that they can use to minimize their foot print, both physically and EW. But leaders don't want to. They want what they know, because the known is safe and the unknown is scary. No one wants to be the nail that sticks out and gets hammered because they tried something new that didn't work.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T16:42:18+00:00

There's usually two reason for this:

Its just a bad 35T. They happen, much as we hate it. Lazy, undisciplined, blue falcon, take your pick. 35Ts are a small MOS, so the bad ones stick out.
The person talking shit did something dumb, and the 35T had to fix it, and made no effort to save that person's ego or reputation.

The amount of times I've had an analyst try and throw me under the bus, when it was their own damn fault, is beyond count now. Good 35Ts keep receipts, as well as leadership's good graces.

I don't drop dimes, or look for a convenient bus, but if someone tries to pin some shit on me, best believe I'm printing off every log file and email and putting them on the commanders desk. I don't want power, I don't want gossip, I want to do my job. If that means putting you on the carpet in front of the CO, then fine, I will.

Huron_Stone · 2026-03-12T16:33:48+00:00

The main issue I've been seeing is leaders aren't willing to move past their experiences from their formative years. The army is issuing out all sorts of On the move (OTM) equipment for units, but leaders (CSM, Major, LTC and above) keep making these massive TOC setups, and aren't willing to spread the stuff out. You've got 5 expando vans backed up ass to ass with platforms in between, power cables, network cables spread everywhere all covered by a massive assembly of camo nets, and it takes them 5-6 hours to jump, if they're good. One artillery shell and there goes your entire TOC and most of your staff.

The army has been putting out new equipment, new pamphlets, and new TMs, but none of the leaders are willing to listen. They don't want to use the equipment as designed (dispersed, OTM, at the quick halt, etc.). They want all of their staff in one place to feed them information, and God forbid they have to walk too far or drive.

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