Serbian Soldiers Train with US and Regional Armies

May 26 - June 10, 2012.

The multinational tactical field training exercise Immediate Response 2012 is taking place 26 May - 10 June in Slunj, Croatia. It involves more than 700 personnel from Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Montenegro, Serbia, Slovenia and the U.S.

The exercise is a part of U.S. European Command's joint training and exercise program designed to enhance joint and combined interoperability with allied and partner nations. It is designed to bring all the nations together and establish a common approach to tactics and procedures.

"It's a series of compact scenarios that allow them to get right to the meat of some of the training challenges they have," said Col. Andrew Heppelmann, the co-director of the exercise. "The repetition allows them to get better far more quickly than a typical field training exercise where they might see an ambush once. I can put them through three ambushes in an afternoon and that means by the end of that they've sorted out any of the problems or issues they've had and they can do it like clockwork at that point.''

All of this work leads the soldiers from across Europe to their upcoming field training exercise which will see them involved in an exercise where multinational companies will be formed. With so many nations involved, the need to establish a commonality of procedure is great.

The training has been made more interactive for the soldiers with the inclusion of the Distributed Instrumentation System-Europe, a system that allows real-time after-action reviews following the training.

With so many participants brought together, the training has been an experience that many of the soldiers involved won't forget.