Security personnel hit training course at Nellis

Jace Radke

Tuesday, April 1, 2003 | 9:38 a.m.

Air Force Staff Sgt. Larry Davidson is going through ground combat training at Nellis Air Force Base for the fourth time in his nine-year military career -- but this time it's different.

"I'm an old hand at this, but what we're getting ready to go into is something we haven't experienced before," Davidson said Monday after firing an M-16 at targets as far as 300 meters away while green smoke grenades simulated a chemical weapons attack.

Davidson, who is based at Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene, Texas, is one of about 200 Air Force security force personnel going through a two-week course designed to teach the defense of military runways and installations.

The Silver Flag course, which includes defense tactics, firearms training and sweeping through buildings and urban environments, is conducted for security forces personnel who will be deploying within 90 days.

Davidson has been deployed to Saudi Arabia twice and returned from Oman a year ago. He says he is ready for another deployment to Southwest Asia.

"I'll be leaving behind a wife and two children, but they're pretty used to me leaving," Davidson said. "This time I just try to keep the kids away from the news so they don't think about where I'm going."

The Air Combat Command training that Davidson and security personnel from across the country go through before deployment is available only at Nellis' range facility about 50 miles northwest of Las Vegas near Indian Springs, Maj. William Brooks, Ground Combat Training Squadron commander, said.

"We updated and overhauled the program after Sept. 11 to take into account terrorist attacks," Brooks said. "We went from about 10 classes of 130 students every year to 14 classes of about 210 students apiece."

The training culminates with a three-day exercise in which the pupils defend the Indian Springs airfield, off U.S. 95 about 55 miles northwest of Las Vegas, from everything that the instructors can throw at them. This can include simulated attempts to sneak a bomb in a truck into a secure area or an "attack" on the base by a squad of 13 people.

Both sides wear laser sensors that register hits from blank rounds that they fire.

"This training affords us the opportunity to see how we operate as a team in a realistic environment, and find any kinks before we move to a forward location," said Staff Sgt. Jen Marshall, a nine-year Air Force veteran who is stationed at Ellsworth Air Force Base, S.D.

The training takes place in a desert area full of assorted rocks and scrub vegetation.

"It's very similar to the terrain that they will see in the Middle East," said Tech Sgt. Robert Carlson, one of the ground combat training instructors.

Security force personnel got to know the terrain personally on Monday as they practiced rushing a group of cement-block buildings designed as a mock-up of an urban environment. The students advanced on the structure across a mile of desert, diving to the ground after every 10 or 15 meters.

One advancing soldier lost his footing and fell, suffering a gash to his forehead from a rock.

"When you push 100 people through this course, you're going to have some injuries," Carlson said. "We've had a broken leg before, but today's injury will probably be just a couple stitches."

Davidson says that the training helps him get ready mentally and physically to deploy.

"It's something that builds your confidence," Davidson said. "You get out here and shoot your weapon and do things that we're going to be asked to do while deployed."