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Guam Guardsmen training for Afghanistan

by Heather Hauswirth

For the last three weeks, 16 soldiers from the Guam Army National Guard have been training at Fort Juan Muna every single day. This highly specialized training has focused on combat life saver training, weapons qualifications, and warrior tasks and battle drills.

"What we are going to be doing as part of the embedded training team is teaching the Afghan Army to clear out, that that's our total mission," said Chief Warrant Officer 2 Robert Castro.  He's served in the Guam Army National Guard for the last eleven years. He is one of the soldiers heading to Afghanistan.

Castro says reciting a mantra helps him keep his focus in these volatile high-stress combat situations.  "Slow is smooth and smooth is fast you don't want to rush clearing a room, whatever your objective is you want to clear that room as smoothly and quickly as possible," he said.

Being keenly aware of ones surrounding is also critical.  "We train for the worse and if you train for the worse then there is no reason to be nervous about anything," he said.

Other forms of training stress zeroing-in on communication via a tactical telephone and being able to perform tasks correctly without error using precise frequencies to make sure that proper message transmission occurs every time.  At the military installation a variety of training exercises are taking place - from learning how to clear a room to learning how to properly function the radio because communication is going to be vital once men in field in Afghan.