Burnett: "... make updates based on what is happening ..."

WEST POINT – Perhaps the deadliest threat to soldiers in contemporary global combat, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, is the Improvised Explosive Device (IED).  All U.S. Military Academy cadets participating in summer training activities this year are receiving hands-on experience with a state of the art training simulator called the Mobile Counter-Improvised Explosive Device Trainer (MCIT).

The MCIT, four modified 40 foot high-tech trailers set up at Camp Buckner on the vast USMA installation, is on loan from Fort Leonard Wood, Miss., which is one of 14 installations that have a MCIT.

MCIT trains personnel to recognize and defeat improvised explosive devices in geo-specific first-person environments.  MCIT takes participants through the planning cycle of U.S. and insurgent forces and then engages them in an interactive blue vs. red exercise.

Last summer incoming Command Sgt. Maj. Todd Burnett said his goal was to make sure every cadet gets the most realistic training possible.  That means keeping the system up-to-date, said Burnett.

“What they do is regularly, they can go in and make updates based on what’s happening in theater.  So this started out in a narration, and then we’re in different versions of it now,” he said. “The other thing is, say, somebody is going to Cambodia.  We can change this and we can configure it for the stuff they are seeing in Cambodia.  So, that’s the goodness of this.  I can pull stuff out and I can add stuff based on where that unit is going.”

The MCIT was created at the direction of the Department of Defense Joint Improvised Explosive Device Defeat Organization.