‘Trade steel for blood’ — The Army’s plan to bring soldiers into the 21st century

Patty Nieberg
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Soldiers with the 101st Airborne Division’s 2nd Brigade took to the Louisiana woods in August to compete against their most formidable enemy, the 1st Battalion 509th Infantry Regiment dubbed ‘Geronimo,’ with a deception plan in place.

Geronimo, the home team at Fort Johnson, Louisiana, faces off against units year-round at the Joint Readiness Training Center in realistic combat scenarios based on lessons learned in global conflicts. JRTC is designed to take away or add stressors on soldiers as well as hold units accountable with simulated casualties and hits that would take them out of the fight.

The 2nd Brigade came in knowing their enemy had the upper hand on home turf so they had to think ahead. Soldiers decided to use “raspberry pis,” which are single-board computers the size of a credit card that can be bought off Amazon to emulate a computer or show up as some kind of electronic signature to confuse their enemy.

“We came in with a deception plan because we wanted to show the enemy that we were in a place where we weren’t so that he would commit forces into our strongest defenses and not into our weakest,” said Capt. Charlie O’Hagan commander of the 101st’s Multi-Functional Reconnaissance Company. “We created, with those decoys, battalion headquarters, company headquarters, and we put them throughout the southern area.”