Boris and QP4,

You are both correct. Ft. H was an improper place to teach tracking. However the Army could host the school at Ft. Polk. Units going to JRTC could send soldiers though the course prior to their JRTC rotation. When the unit deploys to JRTC for their exercise their trackers would have an opportunity to track an unpredictable OPFOR, which could validate the relevance of tracking in a training environment. Commanders from brigade down to company level would be able to observe firsthand the validity of tracking as its being employed by their soldiers conducting operations. Let’s face it if the Army didn’t think tracking was a necessary skill then why would it be written in Army Doctrinal publications spouting its benefits.

When I was at the Special Warfare Center the SWC CSM had everyone in the auditorium and he said that SF was going to reinstate Hand to Hand combat within the Q-Course. His reason was that in the “Ballad of the Green Berets" it said we were “trained in combat, hand to hand” and if we didn’t, we would have to change the song and that wasn’t going to happen. Now, of course he was joking, but his point was if you say you are supposed to be capable of performing a certain type of skill then you should be able to do it and doctrinally the Infantry say they do tracking.