Drum battalion trains prior to duty in Afghanistan

FORT DRUM — The headquarters battalion of the 10th Mountain Division wraps up a two-week training exercise today before taking the helm of Regional Command South in Afghanistan this fall.

"I couldn't think of a better time, in terms of the critical nature of Afghanistan," said division commander Maj. Gen. James L. Terry, who will be leading Regional Command South, a military area that includes Kandahar.

About 1,000 soldiers will begin deploying in late September, according to division spokesman Maj. Frederick C. Harrell.

The training challenges the upper echelon of the division's management, who train in a command center alongside other coalition partners such as Britain, Estonia and Italy.

In the post's Battle Command Training Center, a building surrounded by barbed wire, about 1,700 U.S. and foreign coalition members and civilians took part in the classified exercise.

New to this event are the civilian personnel, many of whom work for the U.S. Department of State.

All participants are expected to work closely together in Afghanistan, so it is an advantage for soldiers to get to know how outside agencies work before they get there, Gen. Terry said.

Successful completion gives a stamp of approval for the unit to move forward with deployment plans.

Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey Jr. is expected to review the unit's progress during a brief visit today and also will see how the unit worked with civilians.

Jim J. Roorda, a member of the State Department's Civilian Response Corps who works in reconstruction and stabilization, said the civilian and military counterparts learned a lot about their differences and eventually came up with creative solutions.

"There's a third way neither side presents," he said. "Conflict isn't something that should be avoided. It's something that should be embraced" to move forward.

The practice, while still on post, is quite an advantage for Gen. Terry.

"When you get to Afghanistan, you're not focused inward," he said. Coalition forces would have the advantage to "focus on the Afghan people" early on.

One of the biggest lessons the general learned was how to integrate civilian and military methods of dealing with projects.

"The big challenge is to get them so that they're complementary and not contradictory," he said.

In May, division headquarters suffered two fatalities in advance of this deployment. Two lieutenant colonels who traveled to Afghanistan to collect information were killed in a bomb attack.