The National Training Center's Mission Fort Irwin is the National Training Center (NTC) for the Army. The NTC is a world class training center for America's Soldiers. The mission of the NTC is to provide tough,realistic, joint and combined arms training in multi-national venues across the full spectrum of conflict set in an up-to-date operating environment to assist commanders in developing trained, competent learders and Soldiers. The NTC prides itself by presenting Soldiers with current problem sets to improve the force and prepare for success in the Global War on Terrorism and future joint battlefields.

Each month several thousand Soldiers and role players simulate training exercises to prepare for deployment in the Middle East. The first week of training in "The Box" consists of specially designed "Situational Training Exercises" to expose Soldiers to typical situations they will encounter in the field. The second week of training is called "Free Play" where everything is unpredictable.