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In western Louisiana, a Black Hawk helicopter ride away from the Fort Johnson military base, sits a vast complex of wilderness that the U.S. Army uses to train soldiers for combat.
The expanse, what the Joint Readiness Training Center’s calls the “Box,” stretches 242,000 acres. It was there that the 1st Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division recently completed a two-week rotation and that the service’s top military official, U.S. Army Chief of Staff Gen. Randy George, paid servicemembers a visit.
“We immerse our units in the training that’s here. We have a professional opposing force that also has the latest technology, and this is where we learn, adapt and transform,” George told CNBC. “This is our fourth brigade that we have basically brought through here and we are completely changing the technology that they’re using, how they’re organized, and then how they operate.”
The 1st Brigade is a new type of military unit: a “transformation in contact” (TIC) brigade. The Army stood up the concept a year ago, and this one represents the most modern to date, equipped with artificial intelligence-enabled platforms, SpaceX Starlink internet connectivity, retrofitted autonomous vehicles and nearly 400 drones.
