FORT CAMPBELL, Ky. — Leaders of the 101st Airborne Division are finishing a two-week training exercise that runs through a wide range of scenarios they will face during their upcoming deployment to Afghanistan.

The computer-based program works like an interactive movie to give commanders a chance to experience real challenges once they arrive in the country. Included are working with Afghan provincial governors, visiting congressmen and responding to civilian casualties.

The Army also brought in Afghan Army commanders and military leaders from French and Polish military units that will be allies of the division in Afghanistan. The exercise also included nonmilitary agencies, like the U.S. Agency for International Development, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Red Cross.

Maj. Gen. John Campbell, the division commander, said on Thursday that the strategy in Afghanistan has changed since the last time the division was there to focus more on protecting and securing the population and partnering with Afghan security.

“Every operation we do is with our Afghan partners,” he said. “In the past we may have said, ‘Let’s just bring them in on planning or we’ve got to do this quick.’ Everything we do is by, through and with our Afghan partners.”

Jim Derdall, the lead planner for the exercise, said the scenarios are based on incoming reports and information coming from Afghanistan now in order to project what could happen when the division arrives in the summer.

“To the training audience, the 101st, it all looks like it’s going to look in theater,” he said. “We are working on creating an environment that is the type of environment they are going to see when they get there.”

At Fort Campbell’s new Kinnard Battle Command Training Center, military trainers sit at banks of computers and phones at the nerve center coordinating and creating the scenarios. In another room, allies of the 101st Airborne Division are reacting to the exercise and analyzing large maps of Afghanistan projected on the walls.

The scenarios range from diplomatic, such as setting up meetings with Afghan leaders, to more traditional military operations, like how to respond to troops under attack that need reinforcements.

Brig. Gen. Pierre Chavancy, commander of the 3rd Mechanized Infantry Brigade in France, has brought several of his officers to train at Fort Campbell prior to the deployment.

“The actions we have to plan and conduct in Afghanistan are not purely military actions,” he said. “They have to first plan with the Afghan military forces there in order to have a real comprehensive approach to the problems in Afghanistan. There are no purely military solutions in Afghanistan.”

Members of the 101st will be traveling to France next month to conduct similar exercises with the French military.

Lt. Col. Daniel Morgan, chief of operations for the division, said the exercise can get very real. One of problems they had to train for was having a soldier being captured by the enemy, which has happened both in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he said nothing really compares to the actual experience.

“When you are overseas, it is dramatically different,” he said. “Then you have to take into account the terrain, the tribal structure, the population.”

Campbell said overcoming the differences between his soldiers and the NATO coalition forces is complicated, but nothing they can’t work through.

“Each of the coalitions are a little bit different and each comes with its own caveats, but knowing their capabilities helps us incorporate them into our plans,” he said.

Yemenite army cadets marched during a graduation ceremony in San’a in August 2009. Photo by The Associated Press

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