July 8, 2011
By U.S. Army
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan., July 7, 2011 — The Army Training Network will use new online training materials that focus on brigade counterinsurgency, cultural sensitivity, and concussions and traumatic brain injuries to prepare units and Soldiers for deployment to Afghanistan.
ATN, a one-stop Army training center, is available to anyone with an Army Knowledge Online login ID or CAC card.
“In keeping with the Army Training Concept, we’re taking training to Soldiers rather than Soldiers to the training,” said Col. Pat White, incoming deputy commander for the U.S. Army’s Combined Arms Center-Training.
Combined Arms Center-Training, or CAC-T, oversees the ATN and is part of the Training and Doctrine Command.
One of the newest strategies out there helps commanders and trainers quickly and easily develop training plans that are both task-based and event-driven. The addition is the Counterinsurgency Standards Combined Arms Training Strategy, better known as CATS.
Training in CATS can be found within the Digital Training Management System at http://dtms.army.mil, where units can view a notional 12-month training calendar that displays strategies. This helps unit leaders tailor their offerings.
The Brigade Afghan COIN Standards CATS translates the secretary of Defense’s November 2010 memorandum into individual and collective COIN tasks and training events to accomplish them. For access, type CATS in the “Search ATN” field on the Army Training Network at http://atn.army.mil, and then click “Function” on the left side.
The ATN now also has a training set for Female Engagement Team representatives. These female Soldiers will deploy to Afghanistan trained to conduct culturally respectful engagement with Afghan women. This tool will facilitate the order that, after Aug. 31, all Army maneuver battalions and Joint-sourced Provincial Reconstruction Teams deploying with Operation Enduring Freedom are required to include FET-trained personnel.
The innovative FET training materials are designed to help female Soldiers adapt to local customs and help improve their interactions with Afghan women. To access the training materials, click the Female Engagement Team icon on the left side of the Army Training Network home page at https://atn.army.mil, or type FET in the “Search ATN” field.
In addition to the FET materials, ATN features a new Army 360 Immersive Cultural Simulation, or ICS, training set. On the ATN home page at https://atn.army.mil, type ICS in the “Search ATN” field to access the materials, which are designed to help ensure mission success for deployed units working with local populations in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Djibouti, Colombia, and Yemen.
Training materials connected with the Army’s Warrior Concussion/Mild Traumatic Brain Injury campaign are also new additions to the Army Training Network. The content focuses on education, training, treatment and tracking of concussion/MTBI across the force. To locate the training materials, type TBI in the “Search ATN” field.
“The Army Training Concept puts training responsibility back in the hands of the commander,” said White, “and we’re working to help commanders with this return to home station training.”
Since its introduction two years ago, ATN has had more than 2 million visits, and usage continues to increase rapidly across the Army. The ATN visits during May were more than double in number from the same month in 2010, and the number of visitors and user downloads both quadrupled during the same period.