Training professionals view Navy instruction at RTC

Training professionals from companies across the United States toured the Navy's only boot camp to observe how civilians are trained to become Sailors at Recruit Training Command (RTC) here Oct. 6.
    Hosted by the commander of Naval Services Training Command (NSTC), Rear Adm. David F. Steindl, the more than 25 trainers from the Training Magazine Learning 3.0 Conference in Chicago traveled to RTC to see the innovative ways used to train Navy recruits today.
    Each year, Training Magazine, the leading business publication for learning and development and human resources professionals, recognizes the top 125 training organizations in the U.S. In February, the Navy was ranked seventh out of 125 training organizations at the Training Magazine 2011 Conference & Expo in San Diego. Training Magazine is the only organization that ranks a company's excellence in employer-sponsored training and development programs.
    On the tour, the training professionals were able to see how simulation and gaming are having an effect on the investment of today's Sailor and how the Navy continues to develop and implement new training programs.
    The visit began with a tour ofRTC's premiere trainer and the Navy's largest simulator, USS Trayer (BST 21). Trayer is a 210-foot-long Arleigh Burke-class destroyer simulator where recruits complete the last evolution of their eight weeks of boot camp training, Battle Stations, before they graduate. Battle Stations is a grueling 12-hour culmination of basic training where recruits work as a team to accomplish 17 scenarios that includes putting out a fire, stopping flooding in a magazine compartment, finding and evacuating casualties from a compartment hit by a missile, loading and storing supplies and handling mooring lines.
    The trainers were told how lessons learned from actual events in recent Navy history -- the terrorist attack on USS Cole (DDG 67) in Yemen in 2000, mine damage to USS Tripoli (LPH 10) in Desert Storm in 1990 and the missile strike on USS Stark (FFG 31) in the Persian Gulf in 1987 -- have been incorporated into the scenarios aboard Trayer that range from simulated missile attacks that can cause fires to flooding caused by exploding undersea mines. The training also simulates conditions similar to historic at-sea mishaps, like the fire on the flight deck of USS Forrestal (CV 59) in 1967.
    The training professionals also observed the latest simulation technology that includes sights, sounds and smells by using Hollywood-type special effects with video screens, piped-in smells, large stereo woofer-created vibrations and shipboard sound effects of helicopters to missile hits to create challenging and realistic training scenarios for recruits on board Trayer enclosed within a 157,000-square-foot building at RTC.
    "I think it's important to allow civilian training professionals the opportunity to see and understand the sophistication of some of this computer-aided instruction and the real-life simulation of Battle Stations," said Phil Jones, the vice president for marketing strategy for Lakewood Media Group in Minneapolis. "These people really appreciate and are excited to see what the Navy is doing here. The commonality is that this is a group of training professionals interested in what they can learn from the Navy to bring back to their own organizations."
    Jones, who served in the Navy as a diving officer from 1967 to 1971, said he loved being back on a Navy base.
    "It's very encouraging to find out how well training is done in the Navy and how sophisticated it is today and as an American I'm proud of it," Jones said.
    Along with the tour of Trayer and Battle Stations, the group also toured one of the 13 new recruit ships, or barracks, on RTC. While inside the recruit barracks, USS Triton, the group saw how each is set up like a ship with galleys, classrooms, berthing compartments and offices. They observed how the daily routine for a recruit is similar to the routine on board a ship or submarine in the fleet. As trainers though, it was in the classroom that they had the chance to view some of the new computer-based gaming recruits are using to prepare them for Battle Stations and for the fleet.
    For three years, recruits have been using video computer gaming as a training tool to prepare them to navigate around a ship, stop compartment flooding and fight fires. Virtual Environments for Ship and Shore Experiential Learning (VESSEL) is the game-based training system that all recruits train with at RTC. The training professionals were given the opportunity to observe recruits operating VESSEL.
    At the beginning of VESSEL, a recruit is introduced with a short story of how he or she has transferred from Naval Station Great Lakes to their first ship in Norfolk, Va. After boarding the ship, the Sailor enters the "game" in a first-person role-playing scenario and must report to his or her repair locker after the general quarters, or "battle stations", alarm has sounded. From the repair locker, the sailor is sent out as an investigator and directed to look for a possible flood or fire in a certain space. The recruit then is graded on how well he or she responds to the situation and how well they work to solve the situation.
    "I think we all are impressed with the organization and the sophistication of the training, especially VESSEL, and how it applies to Trayer and Battle Stations," Jones said. "The magnitude of the training effort is just phenomenal."
    Tim Higgins, sales training manager for Sentry Insurance in Stevens Point, Wis., said he was very impressed with the tour and seeing how training objectives at RTC are followed through by using reinforcement, practice and then applications.
    "It was incredible to see the planning that goes into the training of more than 35,000 recruits annually and how it all comes out in the end to create a sailor," Higgins said. "I also saw quite a bit of this training that I might be able to take back to my company and use. I saw how each step in the training here is clearly defined, how it all fits together and then being able to practice it. I can see how I could put our sales people through similar situations where I teach them the parts, then put it all together and have them simulate the situation before implementing it."
    One of the last parts of the tour was of the USS Missouri Simulated Arms Marksmanship Trainer (SAMT), where recruits first become familiarized firing a weapon. Many in the group said they enjoyed firing the simulated, laser-guided, air-compressed, 9mm handguns and 12-gauge shotguns.
    "This was my first time shooting anything," said Tracey Stokely, an instructional designer for Cincom Systems, Inc., in Cincinnati. "I'm amazed with how organized everything is here and how fast they are able to get everyone through the training."
    Steindl thanked the training professionals for being part of the tour, invited them to return for the weekly Pass-In-Review (PIR) graduation and told the group the Navy will continue to invest in simulation and gaming.
    "We feel it is having a profound effect on our sailors," Steindl said. "We have trained more than 200,000 sailors on Trayer over the last four years, and we have good qualitative feedback from the fleet that sailors are better trained now and we think it is because of this capstone event aboard Trayer. Training is our asymmetric advantage and we have had 150 nations send their people to U. S. Navy training. We think that's because it's the best in the world."