When I served as the commander of the 305th Supply and Services Company in the 227th Maintenance Battalion At Yongsan, Seoul, Korea, I inherited a lot of problems from the previous regime. One of the inherited problems that I decided to deal with early was the issue of the ARTEP (Army Training and Evaluation Program) failure. The company had failed its previous ARTEP miserably, but I was not about to repeat that performance. I made plans to perform the company ARTEP just after the summer monsoon season ended while it was still relatively warm outside. I also appointed an ARTEP advance party to go out and scout for a good field location to set up for our ARTEP and to deploy in advance of the main body of the company during the actual ARTEP to establish initial perimeter defense and communications. The ARTEP advance party had selected one helluva good field location for our ARTEP field site. After a few small safety hiccups while preparing our initial defenses, preparation of our field site came together quite nicely. We had prepared an aggressor surprise party of sorts for the first day of the ARTEP. The aggressor surprise party worked magnificently. The aggressors fell into my trap and bought the surprise party hook, line, and sinker. We had landed one helluva whopper if you will. If you’re going to land one helluva whopper when you go fishing you need to make sure that the fish takes the bait hook, line, and sinker. That is the only sure way to guarantee that you land the whopper. Now, suppose that the whopper happens to be a stingray. Let’s also suppose that you don’t know that it’s a stingray when it first takes the bait. You just know that it’s the enemy (unknown-stuff). It fights like hell and puts up one helluva fight. You are hoping that it’s a worthy enemy that will taste mighty fine (tri-ethyl-good-stuff). However, when you get that sucker close into your boat or into shore, depending on your situation, you learn that it is something that you would not eat in 100 years (di-methyl-bad-stuff). You get a similar feeling when you hook a small sand shark instead of a tasty cod or mackerel fish. Sure. You can keep that big ass stingray for bait. But how in the hell are you going to land the sucker? Since this sorry sonofabitch took your bait hook, line, and sinker, you could always just cut your losses and cut your line. I know. I know. You’ll be out some tackle. But that is the price you pay for hooking that not so worthy enemy (di-methyl-bad-stuff). If you’re lucky, just as you’re about to cut your line and cut your losses, the owner of a local Asian restaurant happens along. Now, the fishing gods are smiling upon you because, said owner of said local Asian restaurant wants to buy that stingray you just landed. You still have to cut your line, but now that tackle you lost just became a profit of $50 instead of a loss of five to $10. Cuz naturally, you sell that stingray to the owner of said Asian restaurant. That’s a pretty decent trade. Well, that’s pretty much how the first day of our ARTEP had gone. The aggressor surprise party had worked beautifully. The aggressors zealously took our bait hook, line, and sinker. We had hooked the whopper. No. We didn’t sell that whopper for $50, and we didn’t eat it, but we still reaped a huge victory. Of course, Captain Jones just had to come back out to my field site on the second day to give me a critique of the first day of the ARTEP. Yay. Captain Jones’ first comment to me was that I should fortify my defenses on my northern perimeter to defend against an armored assault. An armored assault? From where? My comment to him was, “Look, moron, if I see tanks come rolling down that road, that means the war is over and the enemy has won. All of the good guys have been killed. My machine guns sure as hell ain’t going to stop any goddamn tanks. We might as well turn out the lights and go home.” I don’t think he liked my comment. But I didn’t really give a shit. I wasn’t trying to defend against tanks. I was trying to defend against his stupid ass. After he snooped around for a while, he left and went back to Battalion. I called another staff meeting to prepare for the second night of festivities. I had more aggressor surprises up my sleeve. I asked my security team to move the concertina and razor wire on the southern perimeter out so that it was just inside the second ravine that was furthest away from our field site. I wanted them to set up booby-traps such as M-80’s, flash-bang grenades, and flares all rigged up to tripwires both in the concertina wire and along the ravines inside the concertina wire. I wanted the last two ravines before reaching our compound left open because I planned to put our security guards in those ravines as the final surprise. Once again, I had the TOC (Tactical Operations Center) and the command tent relocated within the compound. I also asked the security team to form a second quick reactionary force to augment the guards on the northern perimeter because I expected the aggressors to attempt to penetrate the northern perimeter as well. One final surprise that I planned for the aggressors was to have soldiers sitting in two deuce and a half’s. Fifteen minutes after the first booby-trap was tripped, I wanted those deuce and a half’s fired up with the lights turned on. The reason for that was that I suspected that the aggressors might have night vision goggles. If they did, I was going to level the playing field. I also wanted to cause some noise and confusion. The aggressors didn’t attack until about 2200 on the second evening. The ones that attacked our southern perimeter were really surprised to encounter the concertina and razor wire immediately upon attacking. Strangely, we received no penetration along our “mined” Eastern perimeter. However, as expected, our beefed-up northern perimeter was assaulted. We were prepared. When the first flash bang went off, the quick reactionary force jumped into action and repelled the aggressors. Meanwhile, a few aggressors did manage to get into our perimeter. But as I expected, they were wearing night vision goggles. When those deuce and a half’s were fired up, those aggressors were blinded and almost immediately captured. In the end, the extra surprises that I had planned for the aggressors had worked magnificently. Once again, adding more aggressor surprises had resulted in no exercises in futility.
by 
by 