The Advisor Training Group is a

United States Marine Corps The United States Marine Corps (USMC), also referred to as the United States Marines, is the maritime land force service branch of the United States Armed Forces responsible for conducting expeditionary and amphibious operations through combi ...

training organization established in 2008 to train Iraqi

Military Transition Teams A Military Transition Team or Transition Team, commonly abbreviated as MiTT, in the context of the United States Military, is a 10 – 15 soldier team that trains foreign national and local security forces. The term has been used in the "War on Ter ...

(MTTs) and Afghan

Embedded Training Teams Embedded Training Teams or ETT is the term used by the US military since 2003 to describe conventional forces used to train and mentor Afghan forces (ANA and ANP primarily). They were formed in 2003 under Task Force Phoenix. Although ETT refers t ...

(ETTs).

Mission

“Train Marine Corps advisor teams to advise, mentor, and train foreign military, police, and border units in operational techniques and procedures to combat terrorism and counterinsurgency.”

Organization

Commanded by a Colonel, the ATG consists of 25 to 30 Marines and nearly 400 roleplayers who work together in teaching the Marines the subtleties of training the security forces they will be embedded with when they deploy.

Training

Every Advisor Team must complete a graduate level Advisor Skills Course, learning both hard and soft skills with a final field exercise designed to emphasize the mentoring role of the mission. To assist in making the training as realistic as possible, Afghan-American citizens act as role players. The men and women play a variety of roles ranging from ANA, shopkeeper, ANP, townsperson, to village elder. Taking teams of 14 to 20 Marines into the field, the Advisor Training Group uses a 28-day training cycle to teach the Marines the subtleties of training the ANSF. Each training cycle culminates in a Mission Rehearsal Exercise or MRX, in which the Marines are graded in how they interact and advise their Afghan counterparts during a series of high-stress exercises ranging from complex ambushes, vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED) strikes, detainee processing, jirgas, force protection, morale and discipline, and air medevacs.{{cite web , author=Leatherneck Blog by Andrew Lubin , url=http://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/advisor-training-group-%E2%80%9Cmission-rehearsal-exercise%E2%80%9D , title=The Advisor Training Group "Mission Rehearsal Exercise" , publisher=mca-marines.org , accessdate=31 Oct 2013 , archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121025125243/http://www.mca-marines.org/leatherneck/advisor-training-group-%E2%80%9Cmission-rehearsal-exercise%E2%80%9D , archive-date=25 October 2012 , url-status=dead

Notes

Training units and formations of the United States Marine Corps Groups of the United States Marine Corps