In a series of three posts, we’re highlighting remarks from retired Army Four-Star General David G. Perkins, former Commanding General of the U.S. Army Training and Doctrine Command from his keynote address at the Interservice/Industry Training, Simulation and Education Conference in Orlando, Florida in November 2017.
This is a guest post by TAPE President and CEO Louisa Jaffe.
In Part 1 of the blog series, we discussed three innovative aspects of training that a commander needs from industry as identified by General Perkins. In this post, we delve deeper into the third aspect – that we must see training “as a tool, not a task.”
General Perkins stated, “What we need to do is make sure that when we take a look at our training capabilities and training aids, devices, simulators, and simulations (TADSS) that commanders will say, ‘This actually solves one of my training problems.’ It’s not a tasking to do it. It’s a tool that I can use to get better.”
He exclaimed that he does not need “a tool that is just a tool to train, for training’s sake.” General Perkins specified that he needs industry to innovate a tool “that I can use to train for specific missions – mission rehearsal exercises.” He sees a future where a commander, when given a mission to conduct an attack, will also, “look immediately at what training capability [is needed] to get ready for that mission.”
General Perkins called upon the Army to completely integrate training in a mission from its inception. Moreover, he challenged industry to develop the type of training tools that the Army could use across the enterprise from education to training to mission rehearsals. He does not want any more “one trick ponies.” Using General Perkins’ framework, soldiers would waste less time learning multiple training tools and the training data inherent in the tools would benefit commanders across multiple domains.
General Perkins provided key insight into industry’s difficult task of innovating for military training. In Part 1 of this series, we detailed that he not only wants to see the emotional and practical experience of a large-scale live exercise, but one that is put into live, virtual, and constructive (LVC) environments to scale a combined arms training experience.
General Perkins further wants to see all possible domains – land, sea, air, space, and cyber – be interactive in LVC environments. To buttress his goal to integrate training into mission-accomplishment strategy, General Perkins wants to see TADSS become integrated tools for operations instead of separated tasks.
General Perkins envisions innovative training that becomes an extension of the service member at the same time it becomes an innovative extension of leadership itself up to the highest levels. He affirms that the Army is open and receptive to innovations “that connect useful powerful tools with mission strategy.”
The third and final post in this series will explore General Perkins’s innovative views about the concepts of education versus training.
