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Each year, special operations forces and support personnel from around the world descend on the Gulf Coast to participate in the two-week Emerald Warrior exercise.
Emerald Warrior provides pre-deployment air and ground training for special operations forces.
The exercise emphasizes intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; joint close air support; tactical airlift; counterinsurgency; urban operations; civilian casualty avoidance; patterns of life; information operations and language. Training also includes complex battlefield integration of special operations forces, conventional forces, interagency and non-governmental organizations.
Forces from every branch of the U.S. military were involved in this year’s exercise, which included 1,900 participants, as were participants from partner nations, including the United Kingdom and Poland.
With most military action today involving coalition and partner nations, working on these capabilities takes on even greater importance during an exercise like Emerald Warrior.
“What we want to do is allow partner nation participation at Emerald Warrior,” said exercise director Col. Bruce Taylor. “That’s an important idea for U.S. Special Operations Command. It’s actually an important idea in our national security, to use our coalition partner nation participants in exercises because that’s what we’re going to use in the real world. It builds trust in the international community, and it helps us prosecute the war more effectively, and it’s important that we get our coalition partners involved.”
The exercise operational area spanned three states and covered more than 1.5 million acres, which provided the participants something very similar to what they would face in a combat environment.
Over the course of the exercise, special operations aircraft filled the skies. The range of aircraft, from Air Force tilt rotor aircraft and special operations gunships to Marine Corps medium lift helicopters to Army attack helicopters, provided the ground forces something they seldom have in other training venues.
“One of the things that I think the ground component sees here is a huge volume of available air assets they just frankly can’t get in garrison or most any other exercise, especially for such an intense two week training period,” Taylor said.
While the exercise was a success, Taylor stated it could not have been possible without help from a multitude of different agencies. An important part of the exercise is practicing the “fifth SOF truth: Most special operations require non-SOF support.”
As the role of special operations forces looks as if it will increase in the future, exercises like Emerald Warrior will continue to play a significant role in special operations forces readiness.