Military Police contains information about military police functions in maneuver and mobility support, area security, law and order, internment/resettlement, and police intelligence operations.
Issue link: https://militarypolice.epubxp.com/i/115206
By First Lieutenant Jessica Letarte W hen I entered the U.S. Military Academy in 2007, I expected to be deployed within the year following my graduation. I chose to join the Military Police Corps because of the awesome opportunities available for women and because I felt that it offered the best chance for me to lead a platoon in combat. I never imagined that I would have the opportunity to take a select number of Soldiers to Israel and that force protection—rather than combat operations—would be our primary focus. However, that is exactly what happened during Exercise Austere Challenge 2012. As military police, we served as force protection liaisons and as antiterrorism and force protection of¿cers, executing all force protection taskings for the base. As an additional challenge, our group— which was already small—was further split, with the various components independently focused on different antiterrorism and force protection missions. Through this rich and rewarding experience, I realized the importance of the force protection mission and military police, small-unit autonomy within the Military Police Corps. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy, I was assigned to the 615th Military Police Company, Grafenwoehr, Germany, where I learned that the daily execution of the military police mission is much different than I had imagined. The 615th Military Police Company places a greater emphasis on maintaining and improving Soldier policing skills than on focusing on the road to war. Because the 615th does not conventionally deploy, the main focus of the company is on executing professional law enforcement in the GrafenwoehrVilseck community. And although the 615th is involved in unconventional deployments, those deployments do not drastically affect day-to-day operations. Aside from tweaks to the green cycle training, my platoon—and the 615th Military Police Company—carry on with our garrison mission as usual, with one exception: when the 615th participates in missions to locations where contingency operations may occur. These missions provide company leaders and military police Soldiers with an opportunity to practice contingency plan activation MILITARY POLICE . 19-13-1 and to experience the dif¿culties that they could face in an actual contingency operation. They also provide leaders with an opportunity to solve problems that could be encountered in a future contingency operation. Participants work with personnel from other military branches and foreign militaries; and perhaps most importantly, they learn what foreign armies and branches expect from the 615th Military Police Company Soldiers who are augmented to them. The 10th Army Air and Missile Defense Command (AAMDC) requested the assistance of 17 U.S. Army Europe military police Soldiers to ful¿ll a force protection mission during Austere Challenge 2012 (a joint U.S.-Israel ballistic missile defense exercise). Sixteen fellow members of the 615th Military Police Company and I were chosen to participate in the exercise. My platoon sergeant, my driver, a full squad from my platoon, the leader of the 1st Platoon, the platoon sergeant from the 2d Platoon, and I were deployed to Israel, where we worked for the 10th AAMDC and the Joint Defense Force– Israel for 6 weeks. Upon our arrival in Israel, we were split into three groups. My platoon sergeant and I were assigned to the 10th AAMDC and were tasked as antiterrorism of¿cers (ATOs) for the duration of the exercise. The squad, which comprised the second group, was tasked to work for the base mayor cell, providing force protection for the 10th AAMDC headquarters and the Joint Defense Force–Israel. This consisted of checking identi¿cation badges at the entrances of secure facilities and emplacing force protection measures around the base. Members of the third group were assigned as force protection liaisons to the Ballistic Missile Defense Sustainment Operations Group. While my platoon sergeant and I remained ultimately responsible for our squad, we worked for a completely different organization and it was clear that we were to be ATOs ¿rst and platoon leader/ platoon sergeant second. My two primary observations of relevance to the Military Police Corps during this exercise centered on the 10th AAMDC expectations of military police 37