The Air National Guard is hosting Global Patriot '00, a major reserve forces inter-service, combined military training exercise for air and ground forces. The exercise began yesterday and will continue through June 30. Global Patriot '00 is the latest of the global family of exercises begun in 1995 to provide National Guard and Reserve units with realistic joint systems field training.
Live-fire, air, and land maneuvers comprise this joint field exercise for more than 6,000 servicemembers from the Air and Army National Guard, Air Force, Air Force Reserve, U.S. Army, Army Reserve, Navy, and Marines. They join with British and Dutch forces to engage in joint training at four major sites: Fort Drum, N.Y.; Volk Field, Wis. and Alpena, Mich. Combat Readiness Training centers and the Utah Test and Training Range, Dugway, Utah.
Global Patriot '00 provides a setting for United States and foreign national military reserve forces to train together and jointly develop battlefield solutions. It creates a battlefield environment in which units define their training objectives and design the exercise scenarios to attain the training goals. Also the exercise emphasizes joint interoperability and interconnectivity to ensure that all personnel train within a complete system. The live exercise action centers on the activation and mobilization of forces to support a theater campaign.
Concurrently, the exercise integrates and tests advanced command and control technology developed by the Air Force Research Laboratory. New systems to be tested include hostile target identification, multi-spectral tactical imagery, intra-theater airlift scheduler, Foliage Penetration Radar testing, Secure Voice Adapter, High Performance Computer, Mobile SATCOM, UAV flight test, and scenario capture and analysis tools.
For more information, please call: Maj. Wendy Cline, Utah Air National Guard, (801) 523-4605; 1st Lt. Wayne Ferris, Alpena, (860) 292-2560; Lt. Col. Gunther Neumann, Volk Field, (608) 427-1530; Lt. Col. Frank Garner, Dugway, (801) 595-2111; Col. Manny Pereira, Fort Drum, (315) 334-6107 or Charlie Price, National Guard Bureau, (703) 607-2582, or check the Global Patriot website at: http://www.ut.ngb.army.mil/gp/ [link no longer available]
