As the war in Afghanistan enters its 10th year the US military is shaking up its traditional training regimen to prepare troops for the country's complex battlefields. At boot camps nowadays soldiers are taught to think on their toes as they prepare for missions that will require them not only to fight shadowy enemies on rough terrain but also protect civilians caught in the crossfire.
"Thirty years ago it was blind obedience. Today we teach them to think," says Command Sergeant Major John Calpena, who honed his skills during a 29-year-long career, including on deployments to Iraq.
"We expect them to think. We force them to make a decision under stress."
First aid courses now teach soldiers to make tourniquets from scratch, while the traditional black and white bull's-eyes at shooting ranges have been replaced by moving targets, some which are not to be shot.
Command Sergeant Major Richard Weik, who just returned from a rotation in Afghanistan's Paktika province, watched as the soldiers navigated the revamped firing range here at Fort Benning in the south-eastern state of Georgia.
"Most of these guys within a year will be somewhere on a theatre," he said, with Afghanistan the most likely destination following US President Barack Obama's decision over a year ago to flood 30,000 troop reinforcements into the war-torn country.
Posted with a gun behind the window of a plywood shed used for urban combat training, Private Antuan Lecounte is preparing for the murky battlefields to which he may soon be deployed.
The soldiers' physical training has also been revised to better match the demands of combat, with fewer push-ups and sit-ups, says Lieutenant General Mark Hertling of the army's training and doctrine command.
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