Military Police

SPRING 2016

Military Police contains information about military police functions in maneuver and mobility support, area security, law and order, internment/resettlement, and police intelligence operations.

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52 MILITARY POLICE By Captain Clinton G. Davis and Captain Stephen J. Caraluzzi B ecause of changes due to the Brigade Combat Team (BCT) 2020 Initiative, military police companies now deploy to the Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC), Fort Polk, Louisiana, as nonorganic enablers rather than as organic platoons under the brigade special troops battalion. These changes highlight the need for military po- lice units to be prepared for all facets of a JRTC rotation in order to be properly trained for a worldwide BCT deploy- ment. Military police companies perform well at the JRTC and represent the Military Police Corps with honor and distinc- tion. However, military police units must make specifc changes when preparing for a deployment or JRTC rotation to ensure that they remain the Army's force of choice. First, it is imperative that a JRTC rotation not be approached as a training opportunity but as an external evaluation. Units must train as much to prepare for a JRTC rotation as they would for a combat or contingency deployment. Individ- ual, team, squad, platoon, and company evaluations must be completed, and parent battalions should provide their units with ample training and preparation time to deploy to JRTC. This is a challenge as diffcult as the last 12 years of juggling garrison professional law enforcement missions, military working dog support, and deployments to Opera- tion Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom. When a brigade is ordered to a combat training center, it is vital that a military police company be alerted at the same time to allow adequate planning and training time. This ensures that the unit is properly trained and succeeds in a decisive- action training environment (DATE) scenario. Military police companies historically have not deployed their entire set of equipment and personnel to JRTC, so they miss out on essential facets of training. They do not deploy their organic wreckers, water buffaloes, trailers, and contact trucks or exercise their unit deployment list. Therefore, they miss a large part of the deployment and redeployment train- ing that is intended for JRTC rotations. Military police units arrive incapable of operating independently and are heav- ily reliant on higher units that do not have the capabilities or combat power to support a military police element that is spread across the battlefeld in numerous squad size ele- ments. Also, the mission command warfghting function is degraded when military police units do not bring the proper communications equipment to fully mirror the published BCT communications plan. Bringing the proper personnel to support the company is also important. Communications specialists; mechanics; cooks; chemical, biological, radio- logical, and nuclear specialists; and other support person- nel help maintain military police combat power. Equipment and personnel issues often result from a lack of funding and the BCT guidance to pack lightly. Units can certainly pack A military police Soldier assigned to the 118th Military Police Company (Airborne) conducts noncombatant evacuation operations.

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