Troopers from the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment hold their position during the final battle across the Western Corridor, National Training Center, against assaulting elements of the 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, from Fort Riley, Kan., September 9, 2018. (U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jeff Caslen)

Although now retired, I did 11 rotations as an armor officer in the rotational unit (BLUFOR) at the various dirt Combat Training Centers: National Training Center (NTC) at Fort Irwin, Calif., Joint Readiness Training Center (JRTC) at Fort Polk, La., and Hohenfels, Germany (then CMTC; now JMRC). More often than not, at a CTC as BLUFOR (aka the “good guys”) you lose most of your battles. Often that includes finishing the fight sitting on top of your tank alongside a blinking yellow light signaling you were “killed” using the laser training simulation. I hate that blinking yellow light because it means that in that operation I failed.

Along the way I was killed 47 times (I keep good notes in my green notebooks). The first time was by direct fire by an opposing force (OPFOR) Sheridan mock-up of a T-62 tank. The last time, interestingly, was by an OPFOR mock-up of a T-72 tank (at least I was being killed by more modern equipment). In between I was killed by just about everything on the battlefield: BMPs, ATGMs, anti-tank guns, artillery, Vipers, rifle fire, air attack, helicopters, mines, chemical weapons and even air defense – a ZSU-23/4 embarrassingly destroyed my M113 when I was a Brigade S-3.

At some point I figured out the genius of the CTCs. Every time you get killed you learn a way not to die in combat. Each failure in training is one less way you might fail in combat. Now, that doesn’t mean you try to get killed, because each battle you make it through “alive” means you are learning and improving. The other note is that as a leader, each time you or your subordinates die you learn a lesson you can pass onto the next team as they prepare for a rotation or as they prepare to go downrange. Each time you are killed is a vignette you can insert into future training events at home station.

One of my broad lessons was that many of the times I was killed was because I didn’t do what I had been taught in Army schools. One of the things my very first tactics instructor at West Point told us was that you cover all dead space with indirect fire. I violated that instruction in my second battle at NTC when I was killed by a dismount with a Viper. Similarly, we were taught to maintain 360-degree observation. Yet, several times I was killed by various weapons because our crew fixated on a target.

Another broad lesson is that failures in planning result in failures in battle. This is particularly true of failing to plan for branches and sequels and then dying because the OPFOR did something you should have anticipated. Planning can’t win a battle, but it can lose one before you even depart. The corollary is that failures in preparation result in failures in battle. This is particularly true of failures in the deliberate and detailed preparation of an engagement area (EA). I have been killed by OPFOR who slipped through a gap when an obstacle wasn’t tied into terrain and again when we didn’t ensure our fires truly overlapped across the breadth of the EA. But, I can plan and establish an EA in my sleep now because I promised myself that would never happen again, and I made sure we trained to standard.

I learned to never relax because the ZSU that killed us did so after we had already won the fight and taken our objective. I am sure that lesson kept me alive in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Sometimes I was killed as part of a crew and sometimes individually. From the individual deaths I learned there is a set of “tactical habits” one must practice continuously: individual movement, stopping in a covered and concealed position, using camouflage, and maintaining 360 degree near/far observation, to name a few. I was lucky enough later in my career to command a training brigade, and one of the things I coached the NCO drill sergeants and instructors to do was reinforce those tactical habits constantly. This ensured those habits were developed by the time our Soldiers graduated from basic training or armor or scout training. If even one life was saved because we reinforced something I learned getting killed at a CTC, it was all worth it.

In other words, each time you lose at a CTC, say to yourself, “I am not going to do that again.” If over time you add together enough “I am not going to do that agains,” you’ll get pretty good at your job. All that argues for as many reps as possible using some sort of feedback. Dying in a CCTT or VBS simulation at home station can be just as instructive as getting killed at a CTC. The key here is execute a rigorous critique every time you get killed in training, and then use that critique as a basis for retraining.

Each time you die in training you learn a way not to die in combat. And, if you are smart you pass that on to others: subordinates, peers, even seniors. You pass it on in the form of stories, in professional development classes and in the way you design training events. And, if you want to have a lasting legacy, you build a culture in which everyone views getting killed at a CTC, or for that matter in home station training, not as a failure, but rather as a learning experience.

Colonel (Retired) James Greer served 30 years in the U.S. Army as an Armor/Cavalry officer, including combat and peacekeeping deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan, the Balkans, Egypt and Palestine. He is currently the Joint Improvised Threat Defeat Integrator at the Combined Arms Command, Fort Leavenworth, KS.