The Joint Readiness Training Center is pleased to present the eighth episode to air on ‘The Crucible - The JRTC Experience.’ Hosted by the Commander of Ops Group (COG), COL Matthew Hardman. Today’s guests are both brigade staff with 1st Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault). CPT Pamela Donais is the Chief of Plans and CPT Nickolas Ondrla is the Brigade Training Officer with the S-3 operations staff section. 1/101 ABN has a long and illustrious history dating back to trench-warfare in WWI to glider assaults during WWII to air mobile warfare in Vietnam and then air assault operations in Operation Desert Storm and the Global War on Terror. They are easily identified by the clubs (not shamrocks) patches on their helmets dating back to preparation for the invasion of France in World War II and have the Hollywood call-sign of “Bastogne.”

In this episode they discuss life as a brigade staff officer and the preparation glide-path to coming to the Combat Training Centers. Special attention is placed on the common points-of-friction within brigade and battalion staffs as they transition to operating in a large-scale combat operations environment against a peer opposing force. An interesting note, the Bastogne Brigade flew more tactical unmanned aerial systems missions than any other unit over the last five years and conducted more rotary-wing sling-load tactical resupply missions than all the other units combined for the last year. Additionally, they discuss the importance of planning and how the Leader Training Program prior to their rotation allowed them to get multiple iterations / repetitions while conducting multi-echelon planning cycles.

Part of S02 “If I Would Have Only Known” series.

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“The Crucible – The JRTC Experience” is a product of the Joint Readiness Training Center.