The Commando Brigade recently unveiled a new profession at their school: ‘Ground Combat Instructor’. The first individuals are currently being trained for this role, which will officially be responsible for teaching camouflage, navigation, operational medicine, and vertical and horizontal exposure – with a nuance that distinguishes them from regular infantry training.
Of course, it’s not that until now there was no one to teach commando professions. But until now, as described by Master Sergeant G’, the brigade’s regular personnel officer for the past 10 years, instructors were recruited without a structured process and relied mainly on personal and professional experience. And despite the critical role they played in preparing fighters for the reality on the ground, most of them were still listed under the title ‘General Employee’.
But that is now a thing of the past, because from now on, male and female instructors will undergo precise selection and dedicated training lasting five to ten weeks at the Commando School, where each will specialize in the specific field to which they were recruited, and will receive the title ‘Ground Combat Instructor’.
Afterward, some of them will remain at the school, and others will move to instruct in Maglan, Duvdevan, Egoz, the Givati Brigade’s reconnaissance battalion, and the training bases of the other infantry brigades.
“This allows us to perform a deep alignment,” explains Captain A’, commander of the professions array at the Commando School. “The very fact that the instructors are trained in the same place builds the ability to share knowledge and create new interfaces – things that were not yet sufficiently ingrained in the brigade.”
This information sharing is particularly necessary in light of the immense lessons learned from the war. It is no longer a single doctrine manual that needs to be approved and implemented, but an entire, ‘living and breathing’ library. “For example, we learned that many engagements occur at long ranges, so we updated the marksmanship program accordingly. Additionally, given that even during an attack, we are in defense, we place a central emphasis on camouflage. Alongside this, an in-depth study of written Arabic, and not just spoken Arabic, has been added to the program.
“We used to have long combat procedures, with in-depth planning – but in the current reality, they tell you, ‘This is your mission, you have 10 minutes to plan, good luck.’ Therefore, we are working with them to prepare for time constraints,” he testifies.
And there are many other topics that have emerged from the field: constant vigilance for traps in the area, how to take over a building, preliminary reconnaissance using weapons and equipment, technologies, etc.
Alongside these important training sessions, ground combat experts will also be trained to deal with a less obvious issue – the battle for the soldiers’ attention. “Generation Z comes with different characteristics and needs,” Captain A’ states humorously. “They received phones at a young age, in high school, learned from Zoom at home, and their attention span is much shorter. Then they come to the army, undergo hours of lessons, and sometimes cannot concentrate after the first 15 seconds, which can impair the performance of almost any mission.”
Therefore, the school has developed alternative ways to deliver content in commando training: “Part of our training focuses on lessons that both engage the soldiers and remain with them long-term. It’s not just tools like public speaking, hand gestures, or eye contact – most of it needs to be in the field, interactive. This way, they will see things with their own eyes, and even the classroom presentations will undergo changes and accessibility improvements with the help of the ‘Habat’ unit.”
And who will these future experts be? “It’s an exceptional human mosaic: we are bringing in male and female soldiers who enlist through the ‘Argaman’ initiative, which is the recruitment of combat support personnel for the special brigades of the Ground Arm, alongside quite a few volunteers, and also fighters who leave the track for various reasons,” details Master Sergeant G’.
“The goal is to train skilled professionals who speak the same language, and are dispersed throughout the army,” Captain A’ concludes on the occasion of the start of training. “And we are doing this so that our fighters can accomplish their missions, and return home safely.”
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