Ready or Not! Here we go!

So, the final event of LOGEX 09 is upon us...

This exercise is the culmination of more than 16 months of effort. There were numerous planning conferences, capability workshops, training sessions, classroom instruction and logistics courses all over Europe. All of that was in preparation for this next week.

This exercise will train logistics staff officers from the Macedonian, Albanian, and Croatian Armed forces. They will train on NATO command and control systems, the many facets of a large unit deployment, sustainment and redeployment.

The notional scenario creates an “Adriatic Brigade” that is supporting a United Nations mandated, but NATO commanded mission on the continent of Africa. The mission of the fictional brigade is to deploy forces from home bases to East Africa and sustain forces for extended operations. That in turn will support the fictional OPERATION STABLE PEACE. If the notional scenario warrants, the Adriatic Brigade will support the United Nations, Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) and various International Organizations (IO) for stabilization and reconstruction efforts within the area of operations. Then, upon completion, redeploy forces back to home stations.

So why Africa? Because, it’s a long way from home, creates many logistical problems and the fictional operations area is geographically different than any place within the Adriatic nations home soil.

The beauty of notional exercises is learning…..the problems are hard, the answers need to be real and the mistakes are free.

Along with members of Joint Forces Command (Norfolk, VA), I will be an exercise controller. We controllers bend and sway the training audience with fictional scenario based problems. As the military’s premier trainers, the guys from Joint Forces Command have shepherded this exercise process with European Command’s blessing the entire way. It was a great multi-command team effort.

Our first two days have been the standard administrative minutia. Get checked in, listen to some baseline briefs, reacquaint yourself with the “LOGEX family”, get computer accounts running, do communications checks, review the plans and review the exercise problems or injects.

Although we have officially begun, the real work and value of our efforts begins tomorrow with the mini-exercise, which is like a scrimmage. Our hope is that this will make us “Stronger Together.”

Leave me a comment and follow me on Twitter @LOGEX09!

Cheers
US Army Major Steve Wilke
EUCOM J4