FORT IRWIN, Calif. - Flights packed full of men and women in uniform landed all through the day and night. Thousands of Soldiers and hundreds of vehicles hit the ground running as 2nd Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division arrived at the National Training Center for its mission rehearsal exercise.

Leaders of the "Lancer" Brigade see NTC as the final step in training their Soldiers and subordinate leaders for future deployment to Afghanistan.

"We have been to Yakima Training Center for five rotations," said 1st. Lt. David Schlaseman, A Co., 1-17 Inf., 2nd Bde., 2nd Inf. Div. executive officer, "We have done team, squad, platoon and company live fires; we are past the individual training and basic battle drills."

"Our preparation for the mission rehearsal exercise has been focused on gaining the maximum utility out of this training opportunity," said Col. Barry Huggins, 2nd Bde., 2nd Inf. Div. commander. "We want to come in at the highest level we can achieve with the resources available to us at the home station. We can take it truly to the next level here at NTC where we have the entire resources of the nation at our disposal."

NTC offers a unique opportunity for world-class training by providing tough, realistic and the most demanding near combat experience short of war.

"There is no better training opportunity that the nation can provide: the terrain, the resources, the people that support the exercise, the careful thought that goes into the scenarios," Huggins said. "This training will put us under stress that can't be replicated anywhere else."

The NTC experience is as close to actually deploying as Soldiers will get, Schlaseman said, compressed into weeks of training.

"The lessons learned here are critical and will pay big dividends," he said.

The brigade brought to NTC a number of training objectives under a few key overall goals, but infused in them is development of character.

"I want our Soldiers to understand they are men of honor," Huggins said, "I want them to stay true to their values. I want them to have faith and confidence in themselves, their equipment and their leaders."

The commander's key building blocks are especially important to the large number of new Soldiers in the brigade, Schlaseman said.

"I want them to know that their leaders are capable and they are," he said. "Soldiers come away from the NTC with confidence ... in themselves and confidence in their organization."

During this trip to the NTC Soldiers missed their Families during the Halloween weekend and will be gone through the month ahead.

"The time that the Soldiers are spending away from their Families now is going to ensure that more of them are going to come home to their Families, should the call come to go to combat," Huggins said. "This will be time well spent. The separation is a hardship but far, far worse would be not giving everything we have to train Soldiers appropriately and exposing them to more risk in the event the nation calls them to serve in a hostile theater."